Kendrick Lamar to bring curtain down on Glastonbury Festival

LONDON: US rapper Kendrick Lamar will bring the curtain down on Britain´s Glastonbury Festival on Sunday, after Paul McCartney ran through a set of Beatles classics, helped out by Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl.

McCartney, who turned 80 last week, on Saturday became the oldest main stage headliner of all time, and was joined by Springsteen for "I Wanna Be Your Man", while former Nirvana man Grohl came on for "I Saw Her Standing There."

The 100,000 strong crowd at the dairy farm in south west England serenaded McCartney onto the stage with "Happy Birthday", and were treated to timeless classics including "Can´t Buy Me Love", "Love Me Do", "Blackbird", "Helter Skelter", "Let It Be" and "Hey Jude".

The Sunday Telegraph called it "one of the most thrilling, uplifting, banger-filled" Glastonbury performances, giving it five stars.

Doors opened at Worthy Farm in Somerset, southwest England, on Wednesday, with US pop star Billie Eilish, 20, on Friday becoming the youngest ever main stage headline act.

Other big-name performers on the bill include soul legend Diana Ross, Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde and electro-pop duo Pet Shop Boys.

Meanwhile, Ukraine´s President Volodymyr Zelensky put in an appearance on Friday, urging revellers by big screen to band together to try to stop the conflict with Russia.

Dairy farmer Michael Eavis first organised the festival in 1970, the day after Jimi Hendrix died, and fans who came to see acts including Marc Bolan and Al Stewart paid £1 each for entry and received free milk from the farm.

The festival was held intermittently in the 1970s and it wasn´t until the 1990s that it really began to acquire its current status.

Glastonbury was due to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2020, but those plans were put on hold by the pandemic.