Sir Rod Stewart will be headlining Glastonbury 2025 in the Sunday afternoon legends slot, the festival has announced.
The official Glastonbury social media page announced: ‘We’re excited to announce that Sir @RodStewart will play the Sunday teatime legend slot at Glastonbury 2025.’
The 79-year-old is the first headliner to be confirmed for next year’s Worthy Farm extravaganza – and without any rumours floating around at all about the Maggie Mae singer’s appearance.
Glastonbury festival organiser Emily Eavis said in a post on Instagram: ‘Bringing Sir Rod Stewart back for the Sunday afternoon slot on the Pyramid stage is everything we could wish for.
‘What a way to bow out with the final legends slot before we take a fallow year. We cannot wait!.’
Posting on social media, Sir Rod said: ‘After all these years, I’m proud and ready and more than able to take the stage again to pleasure and titillate my friends at Glastonbury in June. I’ll see you there!’
At 80, Sir Rod will be the oldest ever solo Glastonbury headliner – a title he shares with Sir Paul McCartney, who headlined the festival in 2022.
The I Don’t Want to Talk About It hitmaker previously headlined the festival in 2002 alongside Coldplay and the Stereophonics.
Sir Rod will be taking up the legend’s slot mantle from Shania Twain who drew a huge crowd to the Pyramid Stage last year.
Other artists to have performed in the Sunday afternoon Pyramid Stage set over the years include Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Diana Ross, Kylie Minogue, ELO, Lionel Richie, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, Tom Jones and Dame Shirley Bassey.
The biggest tracks from his six-decade career include You’re In My Heart, Hot Legs, Tonight’s The Night and Maggie May.
Sir Rod is a member of the US Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and was knighted in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Usually, headliners aren’t announced until closer to the June festival, and in recent years we haven’t had a whiff of an official confirmation until March, so this will come as a surprise to ticketholders.
After Sir Rod, there are three other headliners to be announced who will take to the Pyramid Stage on Friday June 27, Saturday June 28 and Sunday June 29.
Favourites to headline in the other slots are the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles, Sam Fender, The 1975, Eminem, and Fred Again.
This comes after Sir Rod announced just last week that he would be ending his major world tours.
He wrote: ‘This will be the end of large-scale world tours for me, but I have no desire to retire.
‘I love what I do, and I do what I love.
‘I’m fit, have a full head of hair, and can run 100 meters in 18 seconds at the jolly age of 79.’
Sir Rod went on: ‘I’d like to move onto a Great American Songbook, Swing Fever tour the year after next – smaller venues and more intimacy.’
He then teased: ‘But then again, I may not…’, signing off as ‘The Ambiguous Sir Rod Stewart.’
This came after Sir Rod opened up about how he views dying and admitted his ‘days are numbered’, as he approaches turning 80 in January.
‘I’m aware my days are numbered but I’ve got no fear,’ he said earlier this year, adding that he reckons he’s got ‘probably another 15’ years that he can do ‘easy’.
‘We have all got to pass on at some point, so we are all in the same basket. I am going to be enjoying myself for these last few years as much as I can. I say few — probably another 15. I can do that easy mate, easy,’ he added in an interview with The Sun.
In August, he also had to postpone several shows and his 200th residency celebration show in Las Vegas after contracting Covid-19 and a bacterial infection strep throat.
Since then however, Sir Rod has returned to the stage and announced tickets for his 2025 One Last Time Tour.
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