Electronic music on the Pyramid

[Beaver89]

I've been wanting to raise this topic on here for a long time but didn't want it to get lost in the fray of festival season.

 

I cannot be the only one to notice that electronic dance music - in the vein of Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Disclosure, Bicep, Orbital etc. etc. - is all but completely absent from the Pyramid and has been for 13-14 years now bar some heavily caveated exceptions like Hacienda Classical.

 

I'm aware that Chemical Brothers choose to play Other as they simply prefer it but I was wondering if this decision by them has caused this exclusion of the genre from the main stage even when notable players have the mainstream appeal to command that stage either as headliner or further down the bill. Do artists in this genre now see Other as the pinnacle rather than the Pyramid? Are the festival in denial of the mainstream appeal of the genre? Is it that the artists prefer playing to smaller crowds or after dark? Am I just delusional that such artists could play on the main stage? Or am I missing something?

 

I'm not even that much of an evangelist for the genre, it has just struck me as very odd that none of them ever play there given, for example, the crowd at Justice this year, the demand for Fred Again.. tickets and the mainstream reach of Disclosure.

 

To save you lineup digging yourself:

2000 - Chems (Headline)

2002 - Faithless (Sunset)

2003 - Moby (Headline)

2004 - Groove Armada

2005 - Basement Jaxx (Headline step in for Kylie)

2010 - Faithless (Sunset)

2011 - Pendulum (Sunset) not quite within definition)

2017 - Hacienda Classical (Open) definitely not within definition)

2024 - LCD Soundsystem (Sunset) and really stretching definitions but putting here in case someone thinks they should be - I don't)

 

Will we ever see EDM of any kind on the Pyramid again?

[CaledonianGonzo]

It's a near certainty Fred Again will headline next year.

[giantkatestacks]

The young 'uns themselves far prefer their EDM to be in a big tent though so that may well be in play.

 

'Its weird' outdoors apparently.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Isn't the main reason that the Pyramid used to run later (at lower volume) so they did a trade off for more volume but an earlier curfew?

 

So subs used to also perform in the dark to a large degree, whereas now it's a daylight slot - and dance music tends to work best in the dark.

 

Which explains the lack of a sub set by say e.g. Bicep - and there just hasn't been a popular enough dance act in the last 20 years to justify a headliner booking.

 

Edited October 11 by CaledonianGonzo

[incident]

5 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Isn't the main reason that the Pyramid used to run later (at lower volume) so they did a trade off for more volume but an earlier curfew?

 

So subs used to also perform in the dark to a large degree, whereas now it's a daylight slot - and dance music tends to work best in the dark.

 

Which explains the lack of a sub set by say e.g. Bicep - and there just hasn't been a popular enough dance act in the last 20 years to justify the booking.

 

They traded half an hour on the (major stages) curfew for a few decibels in the late 00s, yes. They also used to have much shorter changeovers, and now schedule in a 15 minute buffer at the end in case acts overrun. - it used to be pretty normal for subs to start at about 9pm, so starting in the daylight and finishing in the dark, but the combined effect of all those changes means that they're now usually starting a full hour or more earlier than they used to and finishing whilst it's still daylight.

[Beaver89]

12 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

It's a near certainty Fred Again will headline next year.

Seems on brand for me to sit on a topic for years only for it to become redundant almost immediately. Not been following headliner chat - are we hearing reliable rumblings already?

[CaledonianGonzo]

2 minutes ago, Beaver89 said:

Seems on brand for me to sit on a topic for years only for it to become redundant almost immediately. Not been following headliner chat - are we hearing reliable rumblings already?

Maybe 'near certainty' is a bit strong, but it's looking pretty likely.

[CharlotteB]

I think maybe the absence of dancey stuff on the Pyramid Stage is down to the amount of it elsewhere. I do t think Glastonbury has betrayed the genre one bit.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Is it because of Woke?

[Suprefan]

1 hour ago, CharlotteB said:

I think maybe the absence of dancey stuff on the Pyramid Stage is down to the amount of it elsewhere. I do t think Glastonbury has betrayed the genre one bit.

 

except theyve just tried to put it at night time only. Theres been plenty of dance centric artists like Becky Hill last year which would go down well on Pyramid but you just havent had anyone play there proper.

 

Yeah, bring it back. f**k the curfew. You can easily have a dance act go on with the dark and have a headliner follow. Dance act at 8:45 that goes til 10 and a headliner at 10:30 who goes til midnight. Done and done. You could even bring out Calvin Harris to do something that easy and the production wouldnt be insane. 

[Ben7amin_]

For reasons already discussed it obviously can not happen - 

 

But it would be fantastic if they could get an hour or so DJ set on after the headliner.

 

Help that slow shuffle exit from the area if kept some people hanging around. Sure some DJ would be cool with people tidying up the stage around them for a shot on the Pyramid. 

[Quark]

2 hours ago, Beaver89 said:

Seems on brand for me to sit on a topic for years only for it to become redundant almost immediately.

That genuinely made me chortle

[Beaver89]

Oh I would love for an extra DJ set post headliner on one of the main stages even if it were on a reduced sound system basis. It would absorb numbers from the other areas and give an option to those who would like a bit of dance music after headliners but don't want to be out all night or battling the crowds.

 

I know it won't and can't happen but one can hope. ( I still don't really understand how IICON can operate but you can't keep Woodsies going for example.

[incident]

51 minutes ago, Beaver89 said:

Oh I would love for an extra DJ set post headliner on one of the main stages even if it were on a reduced sound system basis. It would absorb numbers from the other areas and give an option to those who would like a bit of dance music after headliners but don't want to be out all night or battling the crowds.

 

I know it won't and can't happen but one can hope. ( I still don't really understand how IICON can operate but you can't keep Woodsies going for example.

 

A problem is that a reduced sound system basis is incredibly difficult to make work.

 

The noise restrictions are measured off-site at various points, most of them in or around Pilton Village. As well as cumulative limits (below), there's also a requirement that no individual stage should be discernable outside of these hours - ie that past 00:30, Pilton village should only be getting general festival background noise.

 

 

Due to their power and locations, even if you turned them down substantially the sound systems in places like Woodsies, or the Pyramid would probably still reach the village out of hours (and if the sound system didn't - the crowd noise would). The SE Corner (and other carefully selected locations) can get away with it mainly because (by design) the noise won't usually reach a monitoring point. I believe the festival has a specific agreement regarding noise with the (relatively few) people who live near the SE Corner (and who mostly tend to be landowners directly benefitting from the festival), hence no monitoring point out that way.

 

I think there's a strong case to be made that there should be a large dual purpose stage, hosting bands during the day and dance at night, not least because it'd be more efficient use of both space and money, but it would have to be carefully sited and would probably need to use a field in the southern half of the site.

[stuie]

1 hour ago, Beaver89 said:

I know it won't and can't happen but one can hope. ( I still don't really understand how IICON can operate but you can't keep Woodsies going for example.

iicon and woodsies are as far apart as you can get and woodsies is right next to Pilton! 

[CharlotteB]

12 hours ago, Suprefan said:

 

except theyve just tried to put it at night time only. Theres been plenty of dance centric artists like Becky Hill last year which would go down well on Pyramid but you just havent had anyone play there proper.

 

Yeah, bring it back. f**k the curfew. You can easily have a dance act go on with the dark and have a headliner follow. Dance act at 8:45 that goes til 10 and a headliner at 10:30 who goes til midnight. Done and done. You could even bring out Calvin Harris to do something that easy and the production wouldnt be insane. 

 

Isn't there stuff at Silver Hayes during the day? (Unless they don't do electronic stuff there - my dance genre knowledge is poor to say the least).

[Gnomicide]

Is it because it's all shite?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C'mon! You'd have been disappointed if I didn't say it.

[stuie]

I don’t understand why you’d want to use up Pyramid stage budget for an extra DJ set post headliner - there’s an excellent range of custom stages and arenas for this! 

 

The stage would have less money to spend on the rest of the day and you’d keep people away from the rest of the programming. 

[faymondo]

33 minutes ago, stuie said:

I don’t understand why you’d want to use up Pyramid stage budget for an extra DJ set post headliner - there’s an excellent range of custom stages and arenas for this! 

 

The stage would have less money to spend on the rest of the day and you’d keep people away from the rest of the programming. 

 

Lash my mate a ticket (And a me as plus 1) and he will do it. All the same choons. He will even pretend to twiddle knobs and put his hands up in the air. Bang a Fat Boy Slim mask on and nobody will know the difference and just enjoy the choons for an extra hour. 

 

Throw in some old skool decks and he will do a vinyl set. 

 

I will be a fat Bez on the stage !!! 

 

 

 

 

[Ben7amin_]

1 hour ago, stuie said:

I don’t understand why you’d want to use up Pyramid stage budget for an extra DJ set post headliner - there’s an excellent range of custom stages and arenas for this! 

 

The stage would have less money to spend on the rest of the day and you’d keep people away from the rest of the programming. 

 

As previously stated to break up the flow of people leaving the pyramid so everyone does not depart at once and you get more of a staggered departure, surely most people could see that having some kind of benefit on the experience at the Pyramid.

 

To be fait in my head but not shared  i was not thinking about it being some mega name DJ for £££ -  get one the stage staff who fancies themselves a DJ to do it for free. Though DJ ing to the Pyramid im sure you get some skilled professionals to volunteer for that unpaid. 

 

Would not even have to be electronica, recon even if Disco Dave pumping out Britpop classics could keep some of the crowd in place for a but longer. 

 

Sadly as stated the noise restrictions mean this is not a possibility. 

 

5 hours ago, CharlotteB said:

 

Isn't there stuff at Silver Hayes during the day? (Unless they don't do electronic stuff there - my dance genre knowledge is poor to say the least).

 

There most definitely is, The only issue perhaps is some of bigger name Dance acts are a little too large for any of the dedicated dance areas. Even a Bicep DJ slot can overwhelm the Levels stage - so if these top tier Electronic acts are gonna play they will need to be on main stages for safety reasons if nothing else. Though this probably does not need to be the Pyramid specifically.  

 

15 hours ago, Beaver89 said:

Oh I would love for an extra DJ set post headliner on one of the main stages even if it were on a reduced sound system basis. It would absorb numbers from the other areas and give an option to those who would like a bit of dance music after headliners but don't want to be out all night or battling the crowds.

 

I know it won't and can't happen but one can hope. ( I still don't really understand how IICON can operate but you can't keep Woodsies going for example.

 

To be fair they put the tree stage in Woodsies last year - just outside the main stage-  It went on till 3AM. Though the music on offer was very much of the more ambient blend of electronica -  I did not visit myself but i suspect the volume was low compared to the main woodsies stage. 

 

 

 

 

 

[stuie]

11 minutes ago, Ben7amin_ said:

To be fair they put the tree stage in Woodsies last year - just outside the main stage-  It went on till 3AM. Though the music on offer was very much of the more ambient blend of electronica -  I did not visit myself but i suspect the volume was low compared to the main woodsies stage. 

 

Many speakers pointing inwards on a circle of tree posts, sound was decent inside the circle.  Ambient/melodic music doesn't tend to create whoops and cheers on the drops either, which helps the overall sound level. 

[stuie]

15 minutes ago, Ben7amin_ said:

To be fait in my head but not shared  i was not thinking about it being some mega name DJ for £££ -  get one the stage staff who fancies themselves a DJ to do it for free. Though DJ ing to the Pyramid im sure you get some skilled professionals to volunteer for that unpaid. 

 

Would not even have to be electronica, recon even if Disco Dave pumping out Britpop classics could keep some of the crowd in place for a but longer. 

 

Sadly as stated the noise restrictions mean this is not a possibility. 

 

Nice idea but I wouldn't be staying for that when we've got some top tier stuff going on at Arcadia, Silver Hayes and Block 9 and I think most would leave if it was an unknown.

 

 

[Ben7amin_]

3 minutes ago, stuie said:

 

Nice idea but I wouldn't be staying for that when we've got some top tier stuff going on at Arcadia, Silver Hayes and Block 9 and I think most would leave if it was an unknown.

 

 

 

Lol if my track record is anything to go by id probably be in the South East Corner before the headliner even starts. lol

[plaskins]

Reckon confidence man would give it a good go and be a great pyramid sub. 

[gfa]

On 10/11/2024 at 4:34 PM, Beaver89 said:

I've been wanting to raise this topic on here for a long time but didn't want it to get lost in the fray of festival season.

 

I cannot be the only one to notice that electronic dance music - in the vein of Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Disclosure, Bicep, Orbital etc. etc. - is all but completely absent from the Pyramid and has been for 13-14 years now bar some heavily caveated exceptions like Hacienda Classical.

 

I'm aware that Chemical Brothers choose to play Other as they simply prefer it but I was wondering if this decision by them has caused this exclusion of the genre from the main stage even when notable players have the mainstream appeal to command that stage either as headliner or further down the bill. Do artists in this genre now see Other as the pinnacle rather than the Pyramid? Are the festival in denial of the mainstream appeal of the genre? Is it that the artists prefer playing to smaller crowds or after dark? Am I just delusional that such artists could play on the main stage? Or am I missing something?

 

I'm not even that much of an evangelist for the genre, it has just struck me as very odd that none of them ever play there given, for example, the crowd at Justice this year, the demand for Fred Again.. tickets and the mainstream reach of Disclosure.

 

To save you lineup digging yourself:

2000 - Chems (Headline)

2002 - Faithless (Sunset)

2003 - Moby (Headline)

2004 - Groove Armada

2005 - Basement Jaxx (Headline step in for Kylie)

2010 - Faithless (Sunset)

2011 - Pendulum (Sunset) not quite within definition)

2017 - Hacienda Classical (Open) definitely not within definition)

2024 - LCD Soundsystem (Sunset) and really stretching definitions but putting here in case someone thinks they should be - I don't)

 

Will we ever see EDM of any kind on the Pyramid again?

The Chems chose other in 2004 i think it was, where they could maybe have done it again (with a longer break)

 

But like with the size of acts headlining the festival getting bigger and bigger its now just the right place for them, there's no way they could have headlined the pyramid any of their past 3 times on the farm.

Edited October 13 by gfa