Lana Del Rey says it’s “unfathomable” that she’s headlining Other Stage at Glastonbury 2023
Lana Del Rey has said it is “unfathomable” to her that she is headlining the Other Stage at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.
The singer-songwriter was recently announced as part of the first wave of acts for this summer’s Worthy Farm event, which will be headlined by Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses and Elton John.
On Tuesday (March 14), Del Rey spoke about her forthcoming major Glasto slot on BBC Radio 1 upon releasing her latest single ‘The Grants’.
“I’ve been excited to tell people,” Del Rey told the station. “I wanted to tell people because as we started to announce some festivals… it’s unfathomable to me to headline the second stage of Glastonbury. I mean, come on!
“They had asked me to play Glastonbury the last three years but we just weren’t ready. I didn’t want to say yes before we had a big band.”
Del Rey went on to recall making her Glasto debut on the Pyramid Stage in 2014, saying that the show “feels like yesterday”.
“I remember being on that stage vividly because I had never been on a stage where they set the crowd back about a thousand feet,” she continued. “So every time I tried to come forward past the monitors to get closer to everybody, the feedback would ring through the crowd.”
Del Rey added: “And I thought, ‘Oh wow, I’m really stuck on this stage – I can’t go down like I usually do and sing with everybody’.”
lana del rey at @glastonbury is going to be
INCREDIBLE
hear more or @bbcsounds
https://t.co/48RuyzVNDg pic.twitter.com/jQQfpA5kVT
— BBC Radio 1 (@BBCR1) March 14, 2023
You can hear a clip of the conversation in the tweet above, and listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds (30 minutes in).
Earlier this month, Del Rey appeared to take issue with her placing on the initial Glastonbury line-up poster, which listed the artists alphabetically – apart from the main headliners and co-headliner Lizzo.
This week, the festival shared an updated version of the bill after announcing the West Holts 2023 line-up and confirming more acts. The new poster features Del Rey on the second line of names alongside Lil Nas X (Pyramid Stage sub-headliner), Wizkid (Other Stage headliner) and Yusuf / Cat Stevens (Sunday Legends Slot).
Other confirmed artists for this year’s Glastonbury include Blondie, Lewis Capaldi, The War On Drugs, Chvrches, Christine And The Queens, Thundercat, Carly Rae Jepsen and Manic Street Preachers.
Around 52 per cent of the 54 names on the initial line-up were male. Back in 2019, Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis promised that she was aiming to ensure “as close to” a 50/50 gender-split as possible.
Acknowledging this year’s all-male bill-toppers, Eavis attributed the lack of viable female headliners to an industry “pipeline” problem in an interview with the Guardian.
She explained that Guns N’ Roses were booked after a previously-confirmed female headliner cancelled because she “changed her touring plans”. While she didn’t disclose the act’s name, Eavis said she hoped to secure them within the next five years.
Taylor Swift, who was scheduled to headline the axed Glasto 2020, had been rumoured for this summer’s festival before the pop star’s conflicting North American ‘Eras Tour’ ruled her out.
Tickets for Glastonbury 2023 sold out last November. General sale tickets were snapped up in one hour, while coach packages went in under 25 minutes. According to organisers, “demand far exceeded supply”.
A resale of any returned tickets is expected to take place next month.
Lana Del Rey, meanwhile, is due to release her ninth album ‘Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’ next Friday (March 24).
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Tom Skinner
NME
