Glastonbury has become the new Last Night of the Proms

Time was when the pinnacle of the summer’s musical experiences – certainly from a UK television perspective – was the Last Night of the Proms. Preceded by weeks of more staid performances of classical music which most people did not tune in to, the conclusion of the Proms season, which dates back to 1895, was a collective cultural experience. Watched by those at home, as well as the audience of the Royal Albert Hall, it was and remains an effervescent outpouring of costume, flag-waving and patriotic singing – more an example of massed karaoke than a traditional virtuoso performance, particularly during the annual rendition of Sir Henry Wood’s Fantasia of British Sea Songs.

The Last Night of the Proms was also culturally powerful – you’ll remember how anti-Brexiters used it as a stage (quite literally) to wave European Union flags after the 2016 referendum, filling the room with them; or how in 2020, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter campaign, the BBC, which organises the Proms, was in the headlines for deciding to cancel the annual rendition of ‘Rule, Britannia’, a decision which it reversed.