The Selecter
The Pyramid Stage, Sunday June 29, 2025
There’s no ignoring it. It’s the last day of Glastonbury 2025 and soon normal life will reassert itself. Quick! Let’s go and watch original Coventry Two Tone gangbusters The Selecter open the Pyramid for the day.
Led by Pauline Black - remarkably unaltered in appearance and voice at 71 - the band stay true to the founding Two Tone principals: make them dance, make them think, and do it looking sharp in a suit and trilby, with a black/white colour scheme. They kick off with a loopy ska’d up version of Laurie Johnson’s theme for 60s espionage action series The Avengers. When Pauline commands “let’s see some skanking” there are a lot of takers.
Excuses to dance combined with real-life issues follow. Three Minute Hero reflects on the working life in all its horribleness, Frontline salutes the embattled NHS and War War War is preceded by Pauline reciting part of Haile Selassie’s 1963 UN speech on racism and global conflict which Marley used on Rastaman Vibration. Then Murder considers the subject of homicide in cheery pop-ska fashion. The latter part of the set features covers of Jamaican oldies Train To Skaville and Carry Go Bring Come, the latter with a big crowd singalong, and it’s hard to not be uplifted by their biggest hit On My Radio.
On closer Too Much Pressure, the sad absence of late vibes-man and co-vocalist Gaps Hendrickson is particularly felt. It’s good, though, to hear original drummer Aitch Bembridge’s unmistakable, super-rhythmic punch and clatter driving the band on. It’s with this in mind that we approach the rest of the day: there’s twelve hours to go and the Channel One Soundsystem, Black Uhuru, Goat, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Bootleg Beatles (and more) won’t watch themselves. As Pauline herself just told us, “no slacking,” a Selecter message which was received loud and clear.
The Selecter At Glastonbury 2025 Setlist:
The Avengers
Three Minute Hero
Frontline
War War War
Murder
Missing Words
Train To Skaville
Carry Go Bring Come
On My Radio
Too Much Pressure
Follow all of MOJO’s Glastonbury 2025’s coverage HERE!