Kings of Glasto

And Pete Doherty plays strong solo set on the Park stage

28 June 2008 - Kings Of Leon proved themselves worthy of the Glastonbury headline slot on Friday night with a strong performance on the Pyramid stage.

The US band were even bold enough to play some new material at the beginning, opening with the new tune Crawl and airing the song Manhattan. And their extensive set featured hits including The Bucket and On Call which prompted singalongs.

Caleb Followill thanked the fans for their support and pointed out that Glastonbury was their first festival in 2003.

The band also told 6 Music they ditched a plan to depart in a showbiz fashion for their next gig in Switzerland.

"We were thinking about a helicopter but we had a feeling the weather would be bad and we'd rather live to see another day," said Nathan Followill.

Kings Of Leon's new album Only By The Night is out on 22 September.

"We were thinking about a helicopter."
Nathan Followill

On the Park Stage, Pete Doherty restored his reputation with a strong solo acoustic performance - although he admitted he thought he was supposed to play on Saturday.

Doherty also dedicated Albion to his bandmates in Babyshambles - and his ex-bandmate in The Libertines, Carl Barat. And he picked up a can that was thrown on stage and drank from it.

He played following Franz Ferdinand's late addition to the Park Stage line-up. The played four new songs and the band told us when they signed up to the festival.

"Wednesday at midnight we decided to do it," said Bob Hardy. "They phoned us up and we were in the area, and Alex, Nick and Paul were going to be here anyway."

Dizzee Rascal also played a storming set on the Park Stage - including some reluctant dancing by his latest collaborator, Calvin Harris.


Andre Paine