The Mary Wallopers play Glastonbury’s Park Stage for the first time

Irish folk band The Mary Wallopers played Glastonbury for the second year in a row this afternoon, moving up to the Park Stage from the Crows Nest and Acoustic Stage.

• READ MORE: The Mary Wallopers: “There needs to be a voice that’s giving the rowdy side of folk back to people”

The six-piece brought their energetic mix of Celtic folk and punk to one of the main stages for the first time, charming festivalgoers with their anti-capitalist lyrics and liberal use of innuendo. They began with ‘Bold O’Donogue’ and ‘Love Will Never Conquer Me’, before ‘The Rich Man and The Poor Man’, during which they thrilled the crowd with the lyric: “The rich are fucking cuntions”.

The band then went on to express support for Palestine amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war before the start of the anti-war track ‘Lots of Little Soldiers’.

They were witty too: “What, did you think you were coming to see professionals?” quipped Charles Hendy as his bandmates had to quickly retune between tracks.

Peter Hooton, frontman of 1990s indie dance band The Farm, was among those in attendance as The Wallopers worked their way through renditions of folk classics, tweeting: “Absolutely packed at the Park stage for the brilliant @MaryWallopers.”

Absolutely packed at the Park stage for the brilliant @marywallopers @glastonbury pic.twitter.com/KMww5P43Oe

— TheFarm/PeterHooton (@TheFarm_Peter) June 28, 2024

It looks as though the band may have found themselves some new fans with their set, one telling them on Twitter/X that they’d “never heard of you before today but absolutely loving it, pure happiness,” while another described them as “unreal”.

Earlier this week (June 24) the Mary Wallopers shared their latest EP, ‘Home Boys Home’, and announced a UK tour for 2025. You can find tickets here.

Meanwhile, Charles’ brother Andrew, who plays the banjo, told NME in March that “There needs to be a voice that’s giving the rowdy side of folk back to people.”

Charles himself said, “The songs are all about fucking and drinking and hanging landlords and fucking murdering the cunts. They’re political songs, and even the love songs can be gruesome. You know what I mean?”

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