LIVE From Your Living Room

As we type this, DIY should be on a bus merrily making our way to Worthy Farm. As you read this, you might be missing out on a jaunt to Latitude or Truck. Maybe you were gonna hop on a plane for a Euro festie holiday; perhaps you were preparing to jump on the Tube to Wireless. Whatever your summer 2020 musical plans may have been, Covid has well and truly pissed on their parade. But rather than wallowing on what might have been, why not take a couple of hours to remind yourself of exactly how great a truly legendary festival set can be – and why, come 2021, we’ll all be having the time of our bladdy lives, re-embracing them back into our arms.

Here are six of the best you can stream right now (bonus: the toilet and fridge are 10 seconds around the corner).

BILLIE EILISH

GLASTONBURY, 2019 Watch on: BBC iPlayer

When Billie Eilish was first announced for Glastonbury last year, she was set to play on the tented John Peel stage. By the time it hit spring, she’d already been upgraded to the Other Stage. Come June, the insane turn out for her Sunday afternoon slot could have easily filled the Pyramid’s field. Bringing together basically the whole of Worthy Farm to toast the success of ‘When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?’, Billie - adorned in an excellent Beatles Blue Meanies-print outfit - had Worthy Farm in the palm of her hand. As far as first time appearances go, there are few who can ever lay claim to such a complete and total smash hit.

BEYONCE

COACHELLA, 2018 Watch on: Netflix

Was Beychella - as this double weekender of already-legendary headline performances was dubbed - the greatest modern festival set of our time? Very possibly. Less a ‘gig’ and more a fully-realised, emotional production, it saw Queen Bey train for months alongside a huge cast of POC singers and dancers to create a show that carried all the weight of ‘Lemonade’ onto the stage. Yeah, there were sparkling hits at every turn because duh, it’s Beyoncé. But her Coachella set also felt like way more than that - a chance to bring Black history onto a massive stage in front of the world’s eyes and let it shine.

OASIS

KNEBWORTH, 1996 Watch on: YouTube

OK, so yes: Oasis’ two mammoth turns at Knebworth weren’t TECHNICALLY a festival. But they were outdoor gigs, in the summer, with a supporting bill so… deal with it. And really, no list of victorious field-based events would be complete without a nod to the Gallaghers’ epic moment. It might be hard now to fully grasp just how huge the band were following ‘Definitely Maybe’ and ‘What’s the Story…’, but the numbers don’t lie: playing to a quarter of a million people (!) over two nights, these sets were some of the most celebratory of all time.

ARCTIC MONKEYS

GLASTONBURY, 2013 Watch on: BBC iPlayer

Come 2013, Arctic Monkeys were old hands at this headlining business, having topped the bill at pretty much every festival going including a turn on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage back in 2007. But entering into the dawn of ‘AM’, their 2013 appearance felt like a band stepping into the peak of their powers. Slick, suited and sporting an… interesting new accent, Alex Turner was a man changed; opening the set with the justreleased prowl of ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, the following two hours were akin to watching four kings step up to receive the crown.

NIRVANA

READING, 1992 Watch on: YouTube

Picture the scene: it’s summer 1992 and, following the insane success of ‘Nevermind’, rumours are circulating that all is not well in Nirvana HQ. Kurt is sick. Tours are getting cancelled. But they’re still headlining Reading. And so, in an IRL bout of iconic trolling, the singer takes to the stage in a wheelchair and medical gown, hamming up the rumours in the gossip columns with some comedy acting before launching into a set that buried any fears in the ground. Yes, we all know how the story ends, but right then, Nirvana were the best band in the world.

STORMZY

GLASTONBURY, 2019 Watch on: BBC iPlayer

Few Black artists have ever headlined Glastonbury. Even fewer people have topped the bill after only one album. Literally zero grime stars have ever achieved the feat. Until Stormzy came along last year and changed the game with a Pyramid performance that used its platform to make important social and political statements, whilst finally giving British rap the headline status it deserves. It won’t just go down in Glastonbury history, but - as ol’ Corbyn noted - “it’ll go down in our country’s cultural history”.