Scenes you don’t expect to see at an Amyl and The Sniffers show: a punter contentedly sat on a blanket pre-gig reading a book while pop-punk blasts out of the speakers. But then, as we all know very well by now, Glastonbury just isn’t your typical gig.
A whole array of festival-goers, sporting books, blankets and buckets hats, are here to watch the Melbourne punks on the John Peel Stage (you’d have to suspect that the late DJ would very much approve of such an outfit rocking his stage) this late afternoon (June 26). Striding out on stage, of course, to Shania Twain‘s ‘Man! I Feel Like A Woman!’, the roars inside the tent are raised by the band excitedly yelling “oiii!” and “get rowdy!” before they tear into the uproarious ‘Snakes’ and ‘Got You’, taken from the band’s 2021 album ‘Comfort To Me’ and their 2019 self-titled album respectively.
It doesn’t take Amyl vocalist Amy Taylor much time at all to find her way into the crowd to embrace the faithful. Warm welcomes dished out, she then yells “fuck the [US] Supreme Court!” for the first in a number of times in reference to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.
‘Security’ then generates the biggest reaction yet, with the song’s refrain “I’m not looking for trouble, I’m looking for love” the kind of Glastonbury-esque mantra you’d likely find on a piece of artwork in Shangri-La. The four-piece then race through the likes of ‘Gacked on Anger’, ‘Maggot’, ‘Knifey’ and ‘Choices’, with the latter’s opening lines “I can make my own choices, I ignore all the voices” a fitting riposte to the Supreme Court’s actions, which has been addressed on stages throughout the festival this weekend.
Amyl and The Sniffers then race through their final rip-roaring set of songs, including ‘Guided By Angels’, ‘Freaks To The Front’ and ‘Hertz’, before circle pits open up one final time for the show-closer ‘Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled)’. Prior to that, the delighted quartet lead the tent in a boozy singalong of “we’d like to drink with Glasto“. We’ll gladly take up that offer.
Check back at NME here throughout the weekend for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2022.
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