Glastonbury festival gates open to a brass band playing John Williams’ Superman!
26 June 2025, 13:58
The UK’s most popular music festival opens to John Williams’ soundtrack.
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The gates of Glastonbury Festival opened for another year yesterday morning with a band playing John Williams’ Superman theme.
Festival founder Michael Eavis, his daughter and current festival co-organiser, their family and festival volunteers welcomed festival goers into the gates 8am on Wednesday morning.
As the Superman theme played, the team led a countdown, after which music fans were allowed into the festival site for the first time in 2025.
“And so begins the FOMO,” one social media user commented.
“This man has brought so much joy to this country and the world, thank you!” another added. “He is a legend for what he’s done for music.”
Read more: Glastonbury could have been a classical music festival – here’s why
Over the next five days, 200,000 people are expected at Worthy Farm in Somerset, with over 3,000 performances due to take place. One of this year’s performers is South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, who will be playing on the West Holts stage on Sunday. London Community Gospel Choir will also take to the stage in the Acoustic tent on the same day.
Read more: Lizzo played Mozart on the Glastonbury stage, and it was iconic
The festival began in 1970, the day after Jimi Hendrix died – the ticket then cost £1 and included free milk from the dairy farm.
But looking back over 100 years ago, the festival has its roots in classical music: in August 1914, people gathered in the Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury to see Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour, amongst other plays, dances and performances.
Boughton believed that music could encourage new thinking and wanted to bring together local people with professionals to create inspiring and educational productions that he believed could change lives. Inspired by Wagner’s project at Bayreuth, Boughton wanted to set up a yearly festival on a working farm.
Sadly, the farming aspect of this vision never came to fruition, but, despite wars and issues with funding, the festival aspect continued on the site until 1926.
Now, nearly 100 years on from the original festivals close, the Glastonbury Festival we know today remains one of the world’s cultural centre points and celebrations of music.
