Glastonbury Renames Jazz World Stage and Confirms Headliners
Organisers of the Glastonbury Festival have something special lined up for fans this year -- a brand-new stage. However, before you break out last year's site maps to see how much further the festival spread out into the land next to Michael Eavis' farm, it should be pointed out that the new stage is actually an old stage but with a new name. Everyone got that?
After decades of being called the Jazz World, the renamed area will, from this year, be known as the West Holts stage. But despite the name change, the stage will still cater for those music fans who want something a bit different from the rock and pop that dominates the other main stages. As if to prove the point, organisers have confirmed the stage's three headline acts as rapper Mos Def, way-out funk visionary George Clinton with Parliament/Funkadelic and longtime Glastonbury favourites Rodrigo y Gabriela.
Explaining the new name, Michael Eavis told the Guardian, "West Holts was a 'halt' originally; one of the two places where we had to open the level-crossing gates across the old railway line to get the cattle through for milking."
The West Holts line-up will be augmented by sets from ska legends Toots and the Maytals, neo-hippy Devendra Banhart and Brazilian tropicalia pioneers Os Mutantes.
The Glastonbury Festival runs from June 25 to 27 at Worthy Farm, Pilton in Somerset. The Pyramid Stage will be headlined by U2, Muse and Stevie Wonder.
