BASTILLE’S barnstorming performance lit up a sweltering William’s Green tent on Thursday night at Glastonbury Festival.

The British pop-rock band took to the stage in a ‘TBC’ slot after an uplifting performance by festival founder Michael Eavis and his band and an energetic DJ set by ‘Sporty Spice’ Melanie C.

There were whispers in the tent that Bastille could have been tonight’s ‘secret set’ well before they took to the stage, raising anticipation for an intimate gig from a band with three UK number one albums.

Bastille (Dan Smith, Kyle Simmonds, Will Farquarson and Chris Wood) were joined on stage by touring member Charlie Barnes and the Old Dirty Brasstards. 

They launched into their set with ‘Good Grief’, the lead single of their second album Wild World that balances an upbeat rhythm with lyrics about the grieving process.

This was followed by seven of the band’s greatest hits from their nine years in the limelight.

Frontman Smith’s lively performance – which saw him use of all the available stage space (and some) – drew the same levels of energy from the audience.

This was particularly clear during ‘Of the Night’, the band’s cover of ‘The Rhythm of the Night’ and ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’, which saw the crowd crouch and then bounce on Smith’s command.

The number of musicians on stage, combined with Smith’s likeable character and self-deprecating humour between songs (“feel free to dance as terribly as I am, I try to set the bar low”) meant there was no threat of a dull moment.

It took until the sixth song of the set for Bastille to perform something from their fourth studio album Give Me the Future, showing the quality of – and audience desire for – their back catalogue.

The only song they performed from their latest album was dance track ‘Shut Off the Lights’, written to show “intimacy and physical connection, rejecting our worries and the future for a minute and unplugging from it all to really be present”.

Anthemic smash-hit ‘Pompeii’ predictably raised the roof at the end of the band’s set and, from the wall of noise bouncing towards the stage from the closing ‘eh-ohs’, you could be forgiven for thinking all of Glastonbury Festival – not just a lucky few thousand – had gathered at William’s Green.

Pyramid Stage headliners, beware - unlike Smith's description of his dancing, the bar has been set high.

Bastille's Glastonbury 2022 setlist:

Good Grief

Things We Lost in the Fire

Quarter Past Midnight

Survivin'

Of the Night

Shut Off the Lights

Happier 

Pompeii