I write this last weekend but editing it this weekend as daily prompt is favourite type of music.
This is Glastonbury weekend and also Taylor Swift is bringing her Eras Tour to Dublin. Glastonbury is a huge annual music festival on a farm in England and always has a huge range of music genres, bands and artists.
Taylor Swift is a global icon and the buzz of her visit to Dublin has spread up here in the North too. She is often celebrated as representing the thoughts of a generation with rhythm, sound and the lyrics of modern poetry. Her song ‘Cruel Summer’ seems to be Hymn for the Weekend.
Coldplay played the pyramid stage on Saturday night and we watched it live on the BBC. They rocked My Universe. This was the first time that the BBC livestreamed headline Glastonbury performances to a global audience, with both Dua Lipa and Coldplay’s 2024 Pyramid Stage sets available to view on the recently relaunched BBC.com. This is a record breaking 5th time Coldplay have performed at Glastonbury overtaking The Cure (with 4 performances).
Both the Taylor Swift concert & the Coldplay gig are using new technology which plays with light in amazing co-ordinated and mesmerising ways. Individuals have bracelets with LED lights which shine and flash in different colours and are co-ordinated to produce various different light shows appropriate for different songs especially if you think Lights will Guide You Home. 😉
Both audiences were also ‘encouraged’ to promote universal love & acceptance. After asking the 100,000-strong crowd to put their phones away for “A Sky Full of Stars”, Martin said: “Just raise your hands like this and turn towards the main stage like this. Now, we’re gonna send a big Glastonbury love thing. OK, for five seconds, we’re gonna send it out. You can send it to anyone: you can send it to your grandmother, you can send it to Israel, you can send it to Palestine, you can send it to Myanmar. You can send it to Ukraine, you can send it to peaceful Russia. You can send it anywhere – you can send it all over the world from Glastonbury.
It was great to see Chris Martin, chatting to and honouring Michael J Fox as he made a guest appearance in his wheel chair with a guitar and still somehow still he reprised his Jonny B Goode riff from back to the Future with just an outstretched leg!But it was while watching one of the last songs ‘Fix You’, it struck me that even with all the crowds, celebrities, love, lights, singing and fireworks, any watching angels weren’t saying ‘man they know how to party 🎉’.
Angels are used to worshipping The Lord of Angel Armies, THE Higher Power who dresses himself in light as a garment. The Father who sits enthroned and whose appearance was sparkles like crystal and glowing like a carnelian gemstone. Surrounding the throne a circle of green light, like an emerald rainbow. And pulsing from the throne are blinding flashes of lightning, crashes of thunder, and voices. And burning before the throne are seven blazing torches, which represent the seven Spirits of God. And in front of the throne there’s a pavement like a crystal sea of glass.
I think the angelic hosts might be watching with something approaching sadness. Acknowledging there are a few aspects where these celebrations still reflect the reality that humans were created to be divine image bearers. At one stage lead singer Chris Martin who seems like a lovely, humble bloke thanked the crowd “for giving us and me restored faith that most humans can gather together very peacefully with all different flags, all different colours, all different genders, sexualities, ages, everything, and just sing and have a good time and ice cream, there’s no fighting, nothing like that
But still, we all fall so far short of full redemption when we look to Humankind to fix themselves. We are Lost!
In this venue, or even in society at large, Christianity is not seen as a solution. Not acknowledging the One whose Agape love is all encompassing, healing & sacrificially provides the only way to true Paradise. That the Holy Spirit coming to live in me when I surrendered my life to Jesus, is the true Adventure of a Lifetime. Not a popular way of thinking these days but then Nobody Said It Was Easy.
All the above is true but how many Coldplay songs did you spot peppered through the text???
AngeLisa Crafts 