Rod Stewart to play legends slot at Glastonbury next year

LONDON: Rocker Rod Stewart will play the legends slot at Glastonbury 2025, the first act confirmed for next year’s edition of the British music festival.

His Sunday afternoon performance will be the 79-year-old singer’s first at Worthy Farm in southwest England since he last took to the festival’s Pyramid stage in 2002.

“I’m proud, ready and more than able to pleasure and titillate my friends at Glastonbury in June,” Stewart said in a statement.

One of the biggest selling artists of all time, Stewart follows the likes of Lionel Richie, Diana Ross and Shania Twain last year to play the legends slot.

Stewart has a spate of European and North American tour dates scheduled for next year but earlier this month, he announced he planned to stop performing “large-scale world tours”.

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“But I have no desire to retire. I love what I do, and I do what I love. I’m fit, have a full head of hair, and can run 100 meters in 18 seconds at the jolly old age of 79,” Stewart wrote in an Instagram post.

Stewart, known for 1970s hits “Maggie May”, “Sailing” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”, released his latest album “Swing Fever”, a collaboration with pianist Jools Holland, earlier this year. The record topped the UK albums chart.

The Glastonbury festival was started by dairy farmer Michael Eavis in 1970 and over the decades has become a sprawling and often muddy five-day event in June, with some of the biggest names in music performing for tens of thousands of revellers.