Glastonbury’s plans to commemorate David Bowie, Prince and Lemmy will include sculptures in honour of each of them, a 50-piece orchestral performance and a DJ set.
Sculptor Joe Rush, who has created artworks for the Glastonbury site for years, will build a giant Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt across the top of the Pyramid stage, where bands including Coldplay and Adele will perform. It will be flanked by a giant set of silver wings and emblazoned, in the middle, with an open grey eye.
“It felt important to capture Bowie’s very particular eye, which was such a part of his look”, said Rush. “But I also really liked the idea of Bowie looking out and watching over the whole festival. And if we are going to have an eye in the pyramid, it should be Bowie’s eye.”
To commemorate Motörhead’s frontman Lemmy, who finally performed at Glastonbury last year before his death in December, Rush has built a vast structure for the Other stage. The sculpture will be a peace sign formed of spanners, adorned with an aluminium ace of spades, a v-twin engine and a vast set of shiny black ram’s horns.
In a fitting nod to Prince’s flamboyance, Rush has built a statue almost four metres tall for the Park area of the festival. It will take the form of a giant glittery hand carrying a purple crown with a white dove flying from the top.
He said: “People do need to have these places to come to, especially for an artist who has really affected or shaped their life, and pay tribute. Particularly at Glastonbury, where you have so many music fans gathered in one place, it feels important to give these artists the recognition of the fact that they are our heroes.”
There will also be musical tributes to Bowie and Prince over the weekend, the most ambitious of which will take place at midnight on Saturday, when a 50-piece orchestra dressed entirely in white will perform Philip Glass’s fourth symphony, which is based on Bowie’s album Heroes.
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Images from @davidbowie, @officialmotorhead and @prince
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