Michael J. Fox has responded to what he described as a “fucking mind blowing” appearance with Coldplay at Glastonbury’s Worthy Farm on Saturday (June 29).
Coldplay headlined the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury over the weekend and brought out Fox as a surprise guest during the encore on a night that also saw them bring out an array of guests including Little Simz, Femi Kuti, Victoria Canal and Laura Mvula.
Canal helped to sing ‘Paradise’ on stage first, while Little Simz came out next to perform unreleased new song ‘We Pray’, which also has a feature from Burna Boy (who is also a Glastonbury 2024 performer, but did not come out onstage).
22-year-old Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna helped with backing vocals on ‘We Pray’, and went on to help Coldplay perform ‘Arabesque’. Standing alongside Chris Martin and Femi Kuti – who’d performed on the Pyramid Stage earlier that day – they performed the cut off their 2019 album ‘Everyday Life’.
Mvula came out to lead a choir in singing ‘Violet Hill’ while in the encore, Fox emerged onstage to play guitar on ‘Humankind’ (which also featured the other guests who’d come out prior) and on ‘Fix You’.
Fox, who famously played Marty McFly in the Back To The Future movies, retired from acting in 2020 and in recent years has opened up about living with Parkinson’s. During ‘Fix You’, Chris Martin sang “Go, Johnny, go!” as Fox played the guitar – a reference to Back To The Future.
Sharing pictures of his time at Glastonbury on social media, Fox wrote: “Glastonbury all the love and thanks to the @coldplay team who took such great care of us.
“And many thanks to Chris, Will, Johnny, Guy and Phil. Oh yeah in case you were wondering…it was f*cking mind blowing. There is a time for every band and a band for every time. This is @coldplay’s time.”
You can see the post here:
You can view Coldplay’s full Glastonbury 2024 setlist here – which also included ‘My Universe’ with projections of collaborators BTS on the Pyramid Stage.
In NME’s four-star review of their Glastonbury set, Andrew Trendell noted Martin’s words about the festival: “I look around and I see so many amazing wonderful people from all over the place, and that’s what makes Glastonbury the best city in the world in my opinion,” he offers, honouring “the most peace-loving, love-making people” that make up the Glasto populace. He admits that Coldplay have “stolen so much of the ethos of Glastonbury’s vision”, and as a result they become “a band of 100,004 people”.”
He continued: “Will Coldplay top Glasto again? Five more times? Who knows? Martin revealed a few years back that the band planned to stop making music in 2025, telling NME they had a plan to make 12 albums; now number 10 ‘Moon Music’ is coming in October. There’s a question mark over the future, but tonight was a good crack at making history with a set that felt like home.”
Meanwhile, Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg were filmed at Glastonbury joining a crowd in singing Oasis’ ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ ahead of Coldplay’s headlining set.
Cruise and Pegg were photographed alongside fellow actor Gillian Anderson and Mission Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie standing on a platform at the Pyramid Stage, waiting to watch Coldplay’s set on Saturday.
In video shared by BBC 6 Music’s Matt Everitt, Cruise and Pegg are seen joining the crowd below them in singing the chorus of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’.
Pegg was present at Glastonbury to introduce Shaun of the Dead for a 20th-anniversary screening alongside director Edgar Wright that same day as part of the festival’s Pilton Palais Cinema programming. Just a week ago, Cruise was spotted attending Taylor Swift’s three-night Eras Tour run at Wembley Stadium.
Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos, rumours and more from Glastonbury 2024.