Kalush Orchestra, the winners of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, will perform at this year’s GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL. It will be the Ukrainian band’s first ever performance in the UK, following their incredible win in Turin, Italy last month.
Speaking of playing the legendary festival, frontman Oleh Psiuk said:
“We are so excited to be playing at Glastonbury Festival alongside some of the biggest names in music from around the world. This is the perfect place for our first ever British performance and we hope it will be the start of many in the UK. We are very grateful for all the support we receive from the people of Britain, both for us and our country, and we are preparing a very special Ukrainian surprise for the fans at Glastonbury. What is it? You’ll soon see. See you there.”
The band will be bringing their mix of Ukrainian folk music, rap and hip hop to Worthy Farm, where they will be performing on Shangri-La’s Truth Stage on Friday’s bill.
The show is yet another huge milestone for the band, who have been spending the weeks since their win at home in Ukraine, where they were welcomed as heroes, and in Germany where they have been promoting the release of the music video to their Eurovision winning song ‘Stefania’. They also auctioned off their winner’s trophy, the iconic glass microphone, to raise money for the Ukrainian army. The auction of the trophy raised an astonishing $900,000, with a further $370,000 raised by raffling off the famous pink bucket hat Oleh wore during the band’s Eurovision winning performance.
‘Stefania’ was dedicated to frontman Oleh’s mother. But over the course of the Eurovision Song Contest, and since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the song took on a rallying additional meaning – love for the motherland. The song became an anthem for Ukraine, used in hundreds of thousands of TikToks by Ukrainians documenting the war. Its lyrics “I’ll always find my way home, even if all roads are destroyed,” hitting home in adversity.
The incredibly powerful music video to ‘Stefania’ was shot in Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka, Hostomel, all cities near Kyiv that suffered the horrors of Russian occupation. The video, which has been viewed more than 26 million times on YouTube, depicts multiple Ukrainian soldiers rescuing and guiding children through the rubble, cut between shots of the band performing inside and in front of blown out buildings and other signs of the terrible destruction of war.
Kalush Orchestra will be playing in Glastonbury’s Shangri-La field. This radical area has a deep history in outsider art and underground culture. By inviting new collaborators each year to contribute to its evolving narrative, the furthest corner of the festival remains an incredible creative playground where this anarchic spirit continues to manifest in original and new ways, inspiring the next generation of cultural revolutionaries and amplifying the collective conscience.
They will perform on the Truth Stage, which is where the sounds of the revolution resonate well beyond sunrise with an eclectic musical programme featuring acts from around the world, uniting the tribes.
Chris ‘Tofu’ Macmeikan MBE, director of Lost Horizon, Shangri-La, Continental Drifts and Global Local said:
“It is a privilege to welcome the Kalush Orchestra to Shangri-La, and we’re honoured to have the chance to show our solidarity with Ukraine. On the Truth Stage we have always championed Roma and Eastern European music, remixed for the 21st Century, so they are the perfect fit, it’s going to be such a special moment for Glastonbury 2022.”
Last week it was announced that, as runners up, the UK could be hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023, after Ukraine had to bow out from hosting the event due to the ongoing war. The two countries gave each other 12 points in this year’s competition, one of the many signs of solidarity in recent months. A spokesperson for Downing Street said, if the UK were to host next year’s competition, the event would “overwhelmingly reflect Ukraine’s rich culture, heritage and creativity.”
Kalush Orchestra will be joined by fellow Ukrainian Eurovision alumni Go_A at this year’s Glastonbury festival, who were the Ukrainian Eurovision entrants in 2021. One of Go_A’s members, Ihor Didenchuk, is also a member of Kalush Orchestra. Ukrainian folk-punk band DakhaBrakha will also be performing at the festival.
Kalush Orchestra will perform at Glastonbury Festival at 1.10am (early Saturday morning) on Shangri-La’s Truth Stage. This rare performance, the band’s first in the UK, is not to be missed.
