Glastonbury stay: Kendrick Lamar and Pet Shop Boys conflict in closing Sunday units

Sports Team, playing the 12.15pm slot at the John Peel Stage, draw in a huge crowd, their post-punk giving CPR to those (the band included) who were down at Block9 and Shangri-la till the early hours. It’s a set full of energy, as is typically, with frontman Alex Rice a ball of charisma. Their new album is out in August. Expect big things.

Come back Paul McCartney’s voice, all is forgiven. In the weekend’s grand parade of Sixties hitmakers, Diana Ross’s pipes are most definitely the rustier. “There’s a great power in determination,” she wisely imparts, speaking of her struggles to make her Thank You tour and this Legends slot appearance happen, but also of her great epiglottal strain.

The Queen of Motown might appear from the wings in a flume of bubbles to a fanfare of “I’m Coming Out” – looking like she’s materialised direct from a dimension populated by glamorous snowflake people – but at times, over the coming 75 minutes, she sounds as though she’s doing disco karaoke after four heavy nights at Shangri-La. “Chain Reaction”, in particular, is flatter than a landslide hitting Ian Brown’s house.

The effect is a set that’s as much a 100,000-strong support group as celebratory sing-along. There’s still a magical frisson to being in the presence of such a supernaturally famous and universally beloved pop icon, and Glastonbury’s perm-wigged masses are not letting this one get away without a fight. They help carry her initial rush of Supremes hits – “Baby Love”, “Stop! In The Name of Love” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” – which are chucked away early like a Legends slot death-wish. They even will on Ross’s failed attempt to start a singalong coda to gentle soul ballad “I’m Still Waiting”. The star and her songs get all the love; the performance itself is of secondary concern.

Until, that is, Ross commits the cardinal Legends slot sin and plugs her new album Thank You too hard to the watching wallets at home. “Tomorrow” is lively disco fare and the title track a marvellous throwback to her Seventies disco soul period, but the last thing we’re here for is a sales pitch, no matter how sweet. The tropical modern pop of “If the World Just Danced” suggests that all of our problems might be solved with a vigorous conga. Presumably down Club ExxonMobile.

From there it takes a cry of “I feel 47!” midway through a fabulous “Upside Down”, with the front-row security doing their customary dance routine, and her Dolly Parton country pop moment “Ease on Down the Road” to claw the set back, despite a frankly awful “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”. It’s something of a shame that Ross feels that songs like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “I Will Survive” are her go-to showstoppers, tracks she’s had hits with but doesn’t entirely own. “I Will Survive” even gets segued into “Billie Jean” and DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win”. But by now the crowd are singing for themselves, just happy to have such a ravishing ringleader.

Proving that not every 80-something at Glastonbury needs to look like they might dissolve in the rain, jazz-fusion legend Herbie Hancock takes the stage on Sunday afternoon, with a performance so joyful and effortless it’s as welcome as a burst of sunshine.

The largely reclining Pyramid stage crowd, fanned by a cool breeze, stretches up to the tent line for the veteran virtuoso. Today, Hancock and his band stay away from his electronic-leaning Eighties material, choosing instead to lean into jazz-funk numbers such as “Actual Proof”, from 1974 album Thrust.

A glimpse of “Chameleon”, from classic album Headhunters is folded in early on, the distinctive popping bass collapsing into a series of extended solos. “Footprints” is dedicated to Hancock’s friend, 88-year-old saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who also co-founded the Seventies jazz-fusion band Weather Report.

“Cantaloupe Island”, with its rolling piano chords and sparky trumpet line, comes next, ahead of set closer “Chameleon” – the whole track this time – for which Hancock takes on a dazzling keytar solo that ripples right across the field. It’s going to be a great Sunday.

Plus, we’ve got our Kendrick Lamar review on the way so you’ll want to stick around…

And that’s that! There you have it people, Glastonbury 2022 is over… (officially at least; unofficially, the after-party is only just getting started over at Worthy Farm).

We’ll soon be heading off but we’ll keep the live blog ticking along with all the unmissable stories from this year’s Glasto.

As Roisin O’Connor writes: “The glorious and long-awaited return to Worthy Farm proved to be one of the most colourful, eclectic and apparently crime-free events we’d ever seen.”

See our round-up of unmissable moments frm this year’s festival below…

“I asked them, ‘can it not be completely secret? Can we tell them at some point?’,” George Ezra tells a crowd stretching several football-pitch lengths outside the John Peel tent.

Secret? Until the Avalon stage makes a big deal of having booked The Joshua Trees, there can’t be a more obvious secret set than Gold Rush Kid on the John Peel Stage. His official announcement a few hours ago was a bit like a governmental press release declaring Brexit rubbish – the Ezra-ites have been camping out all morning for a set of sun-kissed Sunday vibes that, considering the crush, is about as laid-back as the only sunny lockdown bank holiday on Bournemouth beach.

Ezra – an unpretentious and genuinely endearing purveyor of vaguely soulful and tropical Radio 2 pleasantness – nonetheless makes the entire field, inside and out, feel part of his beach-side barbecue of song. “Cassy O” is a hearty country pop jig, “Listen to the Man” the softest of soft reggae and “Hold My Girl” a stirring glower ballad. The shimmer of “Barcelona” sounds like Hertford flesh sizzling gently in the Catalonian sun, while “Green Green Grass” even comes with a story of stumbling across a funeral party in St Lucia, so close is Ezra to becoming the soft pop Judith Chalmers.

The much anticipated party really kicks off with “Paradise” and the crowd groove gently through the closing third, relishing the steel drum carnival that breaks out during “Blame it on Me” – otherwise a less corny Mumford & Sons – and probably breaking records for mass yodelling on “Budapest”.

“Shotgun”, dedicated to the people under rocks on Mars who “didn’t get the memo” about Ezra’s appearance, sends us drifting cheerily off towards Diana Ross feeling, a little smugly, like someones.

No one brings the Eighties and 2022 together quite like the Pet Shop Boys. From the moment Neil Tennant walks on the stage, inviting us to “a world of memory” as the thumping drums of “Suburbia” begin, we know we’re about to straddle eras.

Chris Lowe, along with an excellent live band, join later. There are Eighties synths, an appearance from Years and Years (although not singing “It’s A Sin” as predicted) and nostalgic anecdotes about holidays in the Caribbean.

The big tracks get the Other Stage crowd jumping higher than half the late-night DJs at this festival. A “Losing My Mind”/”You Were Always On My Mind” remix soars – as does “Love Comes Quickly” and penultimate track “West End Girls”.

“Opportunities”, for all its high-camp joy, is a personal highlight. After the last five days, I’m not sure any of us have much of the brain, looks, brawn or lots of money they mention left… yet it still gets us singing.

Their closing track, “Being Boring”, is an empowering tribute to the victims of the attack on a gay bar in Oslo, Norway. The words “you can always rely on a friend” close out the set, a fitting finish to Glasto 2022.

An explosive end to a powerful performance, as Kendrick states: “They judge me; they judge Christ. Godspeed for women’s rights,” seemingly in response to the recent overturning of Roe v Wade.

It’s been a relatively un-chatty set from the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper who lets the music do the talking, with just a few interludes to hype the audience up.

If you can tear yourself away from Kendrick Lamar, The Pet Shop Boys are delivering an absolute cracker of a show on the Other Stage.

Viewers at home, I implore you, have a quick peep!

It’s just one of many brutal clashes to hit festival-goers this weekend…