Teen activist Greta Thunberg’s emergency speech may have been serious and topical, but in festival language it was a total disappointment, man. Fortunately, Haim ran straight onto the Pyramid stage in her wake, plunging into a riotous, upbeat set of blissfully harmonized, swaggering groovy pop rock to uplift the festival’s collective spirit. It’s the end of the world as we know it… but hey, let’s get the party started.
Taking the rays all the way from LA, the trio of Haim sisters have become real Glastonbury favorites, and this uplifting, exciting, lavish set demonstrated exactly why. Dressed identically in bikinis and faux-leather flares, they shared lead vocals and swapped instruments with a spirit of playful merriment that was a joy to watch. No matter how big the crowd is (and this was a big one), it really seems like they are having more fun than the crowd.
Bassist Este (the eldest sister) growls so furiously as she plays that it seems as if she is trying to manipulate the sound with her teeth. Lead guitarist, occasional drummer and middle sister Danielle plays with the full-body power of a heavy metal ax hero, but somehow fits this hard rock instinct into deeply groovy pop songs that sound like what you might get if you crossed Fleetwood Mac with the Sugababes. Meanwhile, youngest sibling, multi-instrumentalist keyboard, guitar and percussionist Alanna fills all the spaces in the sound as she takes the stage space as if she were the star of the show.
It’s rare to bond with three such strong frontmen with no apparent tensions and ego clashes, but somehow this sisterhood manages to balance the spotlight and present a truly united front. The way they alternate the lead vocals is a real delight, picking up on each other’s lines, crisscrossing and harmonizing. It sure helps that they have such elastic, melodic songs to play with. My only complaint about Haim is that they rock so much harder live than on record. They’ve come this far by making really arty modern pop with old-fashioned harmonic flavors, but one of these days I’d love to hear them go wild in the studio and turn the dial to 11.
However, it is difficult to dispute their progress. Nearly ten years ago, in 2013, I watched Haim make their Glastonbury debut and described them as future headliners. I stick to that. It’s taken ten years to climb to third place on Saturday night’s Pyramid stage bill, but they still look and sound like a band on a mission. Ham rock. And they’re going to rock all the way to first place… as long as the world doesn’t end first. neil mcormick