Shantis, Queen singalongs, and a burning effigy: how Glastonbury celebrated the summer solstice

The sunset over Glastonbury
The sunset over Glastonbury

Glastonbury Festival's sheer scale is one of its defining characteristics; the 175,000 people who attend, the miles they walk every day, the dozens of stages - too many to officially count - and hundreds of performers. But I'd argue that it's the details that give Glastonbury its eternal shimmer over all other festivals. The thought, creativity and love poured into each square inch of the site, which carve out unique traditions that some seek out year after year.

Many will know to watch the sun rise over the festival's final morning before making a final, heavy-legged trudge through the litter-strewn Pyramid Stage field. But the magic begins five days earlier, also at the Stone Circle, when another new festival is welcomed in with spirit and fire. This year, that collided with the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. 

The scene at the Stone Circle Credit: Paul Grover

Although some details change every year, the format roughly stays the same. At sunset, a Druid takes to the mic and speaks to the gathering crowd filling up the hill beneath her. She urges them to pass out light and love into the world, before encouraging some 50,000 people to turn their bodies, arms raised, to each corner of the earth (north, east, south, west) to welcome in its spirits.

There's a little light chanting - some Oms, a few shantis, nothing that would be out of place in a yoga class - which sounds strangely beautiful, even when it is created by several thousand drunk people.

Credit: paul grover

The whole thing is flanked by flame and the passing of it. Two huge wooden phoenixes sat atop the site's tallest peaks - above the Stone Circle and, a few hundred feet to the east, beyond the Glastonbury sign, where people spent much of Wednesday's still-warm evening proposing to one another.

The birds proved a winking draw to those, hot and several pints down, who would have rather sacked the whole thing off but wanted to see the fire lit, a primal sign of the festival's beginning. 

On Wednesday night, the fires were lit with a chain of torches that had been originally ignited by the Hiroshima peace flame, which has been burning for 77 years. The torch bearers were the first sign that the ceremony had begun. From the bottom of the field a Chinese red dragon rapidly weft its way through the crowd, snapping its tasseled jaws above their heads and leading a string of flickering lanterns.

The view from the hill Credit:  Paul Grover

Near the Phoenix, the drummers lined up as the hush refused to settle - the crowd wasn't  sure what was going on, not quite yet - as the higher pitched drums called out over a speaker system resonating from the belly of the festival below. 

It took a soprano, ethereal and quivering, to make people stand to attention. The music was not familiar, although the vocalist conjured comparisons to Grace Jones and Kate Bush, but it was commanding. An impromptu Mexican wave scattered down the field, led by the shirtless and tattooed performers who would be breathing and dancing with fire within the hour.

Festival-goers await the sunset in 'The Park' Credit: Paul Grover

It wasn't for everyone. Peals of well-worn crowd singalongs, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and Oasis's Don't Look Back in Anger, which had earned a poignant new resonance since the Manchester Attack less than a month ago, emerged from pockets of the crowd impatient to see the phoenixes ignite. 

The burning phoenix Credit: AFP

But the sense of an awakening was undeniable. The skies were darkening slowly, the curls of cloud turning pink against fading blue as mist gathered to the west, and, after the hottest June day since 1974, cool settled on the hard ground. Beneath, lights dotted a city that has been built only to exist for a few days.

The darkness heralded the end of the longest day, and the following ones will shorten until we reach the beginning of winter. But as the fireworks exploded across the site, leading to flames catching hold of the bracken behind the Phoenix, another Glastonbury was begun: the last on this site until 2019.