“Any scumbags in the audience?” Joe Talbot leers at a seething Other Stage crowd by way of introducing the bovver boot chant ‘I’m Scum’. There’s a distinct sense that the outsiders have stormed the gates during IDLES’ headline set, which pits them against fellow post-punks Fontaines D.C. on the Park Stage. Perhaps the clash gives Talbot and the gang something to prove: this is a bravura show that pops with cartoonish rage and flows with compassion, righteousness… and even a few chuckles along the way.
Talbot sports a shock of pink hair; guitarist Mark Bowen a sort of sheer onesie covered in roses. The frontman proclaims of the aforementioned track: “This is for the people of Palestine and this is for you.” He repeatedly announces “Viva Palestina!”, incites a crowd to bellow “Fuck the King!” and demands a circle pit so massive it makes “the whole fucking field spin”. He almost gets his wish.
IDLES are the Looney Tunes of punk – a fact that draws devotion and opprobrium in equal measure, and results in colourful, larger-than-life stagecraft. Guitarist Lee Keirnan is out in the audience by the second song and spends much of the show windmilling around the stage, hair flailing as he attacks his guitar like he’s trying to saw it in half. Talbot, the master of ceremonies, enunciates more exaggeratedly than ever, chewing over the words, savouring them. At one point, bassist Adam Devonshire closes in on drummer Jon Beavis and they lock eyes, the former all steely resolve and the latter grinning madly.
It’s a juxtaposition that epitomises the gig, which is so packed with standout moments that a surprise appearance from experimental rapper Danny Brown, who lends a new verse to the stuttering ‘POP POP POP’, is a little lost in the mix. There’s laughter when screens by the side of the stage depict a fan with a sign that declares “You can piss in my sink Joe!” (a reference to lyrics from the track ‘1049 Gotho’) and palpable sense of protest when, during ‘Mother’, Talbot roars: “The best way to scare a Tory is to read and get rich”. A few days before we should be rid of the fuckers, the mantra hits harder than ever.
Most astonishing, though, is tonight’s performance of ‘Danny Nedelko’. As ever, Talbot describes the song as “a celebration of the bravery and the hard work of the immigrants who built our country”. And then something wholly unexpected (not least among the band themselves) happens. A fake life raft bearing life-jacketed dummies rears up through the audience: it bobs and weaves, lifted by countless outstretched hands that scramble to right the vessel when it upturns.
The raft, which we later learn was designed by Banksy, drifts towards the stage and Bowen reaches out to it before he flops into the crowd – an unforgettable image from a truly incendiary show. “We’ll back to back headline the Pyramid Stage in 2027,” a bloodied Talbot spits before they leave the stage. You’d better believe it.
IDLES’ Glastonbury setlist was:
‘Colossus’
‘Gift Horse’
‘Mr. Motivator’
‘Mother’
‘Car Crash’
‘I’m Scum’
‘The Wheel’
‘Gratitude’
‘Benzocaine’
‘POP POP POP’ (with Danny Brown)
‘Never Fight a Man With a Perm’
‘Dancer’
‘Danny Nedelko’
‘Rottweiler’
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