Noel Gallagher Blasts Glastonbury Festival for Becoming ‘Woke’

Neither Noel Gallagher nor his brother Liam are known for mincing their words. Older brother Noel’s most recent target is the same festival Oasis played twice in their career: Glastonbury.

“Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love Glastonbury,” he recently told The Sun. “I think it’s one of the most important things. In fact it’s probably the best fucking thing about Britain apart from the Premier League.”

Oasis famously headlined the festival in 1994 to tens of thousands of people, the same year they released their debut album Definitely Maybe.

“There are literally hundreds of festivals in the world, and I should know because I’ve played most if not all of them. The funny thing is, though, there’s really only one festival in the world – in the truest sense of the word anyway,” Noel recalled of that show on his social media years later. “Glastonbury is like Christmas.”

READ MORE: Liam Gallgher Plays Surprising Noel Gallagher Cover at ‘Definitely Maybe’ Anniversary Tour Opener – Setlist + Video

But now, he says, things have changed.

“It’s getting a bit woke now, that place, and a bit kind of preachy and a bit virtue signaling,” he told The Sun. “I don’t like it in music — little fucking idiots waving flags around and making political statements and bands taking the stage and saying, ‘Hey guys, isn’t war ­terrible, yeah? Let’s all boo war. Fuck the Tories man,’ and all that. It’s like, look — play your fucking tunes and get off.”

“It’s too much. Donate all your money to the cause — that’s it, stop yapping about it,” he continued. “Everybody knows what’s going on in the fucking world, you’ve got a phone in your pocket that tells you anyway. What is the point of virtue signaling?”

The Presence of Dave Grohl

This trend is apparently not the only thing that annoyed the songwriter at this year’s festival. There was also Dave Grohl, whom Noel made clear is not exactly a friend.

“I did actually bump into Dave. He was about three feet away from me when I was watching LCD Soundsystem and he was staying in the same hotel I was staying in,” he explained. “I would just like him to wind his fucking neck in about Oasis. I wouldn’t talk to him. I haven’t got time for that fucking mob anymore. I haven’t got fuck all to say to him. He’s our kid’s mate anyway.” (“Our kid” is Northern English slang for a sibling, presumably a reference to the fact that Grohl co-wrote his brother Liam’s 2022 single “Everything’s Electric.”)