The 79-year-old artist says the music festival is “not the way I remember it being” after BBC “wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in”.
Neil Young, the Canadian-American singer-songwriter announced that he will not perform at Glastonbury this year. He said that he believes BBC’s involvement in the music festival means it is “now under corporate control”. On Tuesday, the 79-year-old musician wrote a letter on his website, Neil Young Archives, lamenting why the artist and the Chrome Hearts, his band pulled out from the festival that is held at Worthy Farm in Somerset every year.
“The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favorite outdoor gigs,” Young wrote. “We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in. It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”
The BBC has partnered with the music festival since 1997. A Chrome Hearts performance had been rumored although Young had yet to be announced as an act at Glastonbury this year. Other acts considered to be performing at the 2025 festival include Rihanna, Olivia Rodrigo, Eminem, Ed Sheeran, and Sam Fender, which will take place on 27–29 June 2025. The only confirmed act at the music festival this year so far is Rocker Rod Stewart. He will be returned to the stage of the music festival after 23 years after his last performance. Nile Rodgers also accidentally revealed that he would perform with Chic during an acceptance speech at the Rolling Stone Awards in November.
Young last performed as a headline act at Glastonbury in 2009 on the pyramid stage. However, only portions of his two-hour set were broadcast on the BBC. To the criticism from Young’s fans, the BBC responded that it had “spent the last couple of months” negotiating with the musician’s management about how much of his set they could broadcast. “Neil Young’s career has been conducted on his own terms,” the BBC stated in a statement at that time. “Neil’s management agreed to let TV and radio broadcast five songs as they watched and listened to his performance. They believe in the live event and retaining its mystery and that of their artist.”
Neil Young was also booked for a performance in Glastonbury in 1997 but the artist pulled out after cutting his finger in an accident. He was making a ham sandwich just before the start of his European tour and cut his finger during that. The artist said at that time, “I’d have eaten the thing in one piece if I’d known that cutting it in half would jeopardize the tour. It’s macaroni and cheese from now on.”
It was revealed by the accounts filed with Companies House that the music festival almost doubled its annual profits in the 12 months leading up to March 2024. Founder Michael Eavis, transferred his shares in the festival to his daughter Emily, who runs the event. A festival spokesperson in a statement to the Financial Times mentioned, “Having entered his 90th year, Michael Eavis is … proceeding with his long-held plan to pass control of the festival over to his daughter, Emily. The past few years have already seen Emily take over the day-to-day organization of the event, and this latest change is simply another part of that process.”
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