Guns N’ Roses thank fans for invite as they kick off Glastonbury debut

The performance featured the original line-up of Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan – who reunited in 2015.

Guns N’ Roses thank fans for invite as they kick off debut Glastonbury performance (Yui Mok/PA) (PA Wire)

Axl Rose thanked fans for “inviting” Guns N’ Roses to Glastonbury, as the US rock legends kicked off their debut performance at the world-famous festival.

The band wasted no time in firing up crowds on Saturday night, playing a selection of hit songs including Bad Obsession, Chinese Democracy and Slither.

The performance featured the original line-up of Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan – who reunited in 2015.

Fans dressed in Slash’s trademark top hat, dark glasses and long black hair wigs, erupted as the guitarist struck up the famous opening riff to their hit song Welcome To The Jungle.

Switching up the lyrics, Rose sang: “Do you know where you are? You’re in the jungle, Glastonbury!”

Addressing crowds, he told them: “How you doing? We’d like to thank you for inviting us – thank you.”

Rose later reassured fans that he was not trying to “wuss out” by not coming out to interact with them.

“I can only walk so far, because if I walk out here I can only hear the crowd I can’t hear the band. I’m not trying to wuss out,” he said,

Meanwhile, fans became restless over at The Other Stage after Lana Del Rey began her set 30 minutes late.

Chants of “we want Lana” rang through the field as the US singer kept crowds waiting.

The delay came after reports that the Born To Die singer was not impressed that she was not initially billed as the main act on the stage for Saturday on the first line-up poster.

She and Guns N’ Roses close out the fifth day at Worthy Farm, in Somerset, which saw performances from other big names including Lizzo, Lewis Capaldi, and The Pretenders.

Lizzo, who performed immediately before Guns N’ Roses, delivered a high energy set that was packed with her usual messages of diversity, inclusion and body-positivity.

The US pop star said she was “so moved” as she expressed gratitude to fans for helping her to reach the heights of the Glastonbury mainstage.

Throughout the set, she switched through three eye-catching outfits – kicking off in a pink and black tasselled jumpsuit, before transitioning into a shiny pink one, and finishing in a shimmering golden dress.

Finishing a rendition of her hit song Truth Hurts, she told crowds: “I’m just so overwhelmed.

“Last time I played this festival was 2019, and I was like ‘man, I’m doing big shit, because the first time I played this festival was 2018 – in one of those big tents. Nobody was in there.

“But me and my DJ… we kept playing, and we played our hearts out, and now I stand before you and I’m so moved.”

Expressing further gratitude to her fans, Lizzo said: “I want to say thank you Glastonbury for having me and putting me on this stage.

“I want to say thank you all for being here – your time means the world to me. It’s very important that I let you know that.”

Scottish superstar Capaldi earlier powered through an emotional set on the mainstage  as he steadily lost his voice.

At the end of the show the 26-year-old revealed that he plans to take some more time off, after previously cancelling all his other commitments in June ahead of the festival at Worthy Farm to allow himself time to “rest and recover”.

Capaldi treated the crowd of adoring fans to a host of hit tracks from his two chart-topping albums as well as taking his shirt off at one stage.

Among the songs on his set list were Forget Me, the lead single off his recently released second studio album, Before You Go and Hold Me While You Wait.

After performing Bruises, he admitted he was having voice issues, telling the crowd: “I’m going to be honest everybody but I’m starting to lose my voice up here, but we’re going to keep going and we’re going to go until the end.

“I just need you all to sing with me as loud as you can if that’s okay?”

He continued to apologise to the crowd, and the Eavis family who organise Glastonbury, for his voice starting to go – but the ocean of fans replied by cheering him on and chanting “Oh Lewis Capaldi”.

Before his final song, the singer told the crowd: “I recently took three weeks off just because I’ve been none stop the past year and I wanted to take a wee break from my head for my mental health.

“I wanted to come back and do Glastonbury because it’s obviously so incredible so I just want to thank you all for coming out. I was scared but you’ve really made me feel at ease so thank you very much for that.”

Capaldi added: “I feel like I’ll be taking another wee break over the next couple of weeks so you probably won’t see much of me for the rest of the year maybe even. But when I do come back, when I do see you, I hope you’re all still up for watching.”

He closed his set with his Grammy-nominated track Someone You Loved, telling the crowd “I love you all” and became emotional as they chanted back the lyrics to him when he was struggling to sing some of the notes.

The Glaswegian singer, who has previously opened up about his recent diagnosis of Tourette’s, also appeared to experience an increasing number of ticks during the set.

Capaldi, who donned a white T-shirt for the set, admitted he had a funky jacket planned for the show but the sun beating down on the festival made it impossible.

A flight of planes also flew over the festival as he played guitar and sang his track Forever.

After he finished the track, he asked the crowd if that was a usual thing, adding: “Does that happen a lot? No? So they just thought ‘You know what that Lewis Capaldi set needs, send in the Red Arrows’.”

Rick Astley opened the Pyramid Stage on Saturday, performing a Harry Styles cover and also showing off his drumming skills as he made his debut at the music festival.

Dressed in a dusky rose coloured suit, the 57-year-old singer opened the set with his hit song from the 1980s Together Forever, and later launched into a cover of Styles’ As It Was.

Taking to the drums to play AC/DC’s Highway To Hell, Astley told the audience: “When I was a kid, my first experience of being in a band was playing the drums.

“I’ve had many dreams in my life. One of my dreams has been to perform at Glastonbury – that dream has come true today.

“Maybe even possibly bigger, which I don’t know how it possibly could, is for me to play drums to the first record that I learned to play the drums to.

“I was a 15-year-old kid in my dad’s greenhouse, and I played this album to death, I broke this record learning the drums to it. Ladies and gentlemen, will you please join in, this is AC/DC.”

Other songs featured included his song Whenever You Need Somebody from 1987 as well as new song Dippin My Feet, from his upcoming ninth studio album titled Are We There Yet?, due for release in October.

Following his performance, which he ended with his 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up, Astley joined indie band Blossoms on the newly-named Woodsies stage.

Elsewhere on Saturday, actress Tilda Swinton joined composer and pianist Max Richter on the Park stage to provide spoken word alongside his classical set, with Richter telling the crowd: “It’s great to be here, really great to be here. It’s my first time playing here and it’s just an honour to be opening up this stage today.”

Labour’s shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband joined a panel in a talk called One Minute To Midnight: Can Politics Deliver On Climate Action?