Following confirmation that Barry Gibb will return to Glastonbury this summer, we revisit his 2016 interview with Music Week, where the Bee Gee spills the beans on his cameo with Coldplay at last year's event.
Barry Gibb has lifted the lid on his acclaimed Glastonbury guest appearance with Coldplay – and confirmed he would love to play the festival again in the future.
The superstars of their respective generations combined for duets on To Love Somebody and Stayin’ Alive during the encore of Coldplay’s headlining set on the final night of this year’s festival. When the event came to a close, Gibb was the name on everyone’s lips.
“It was incredible,” Gibb told Music Week. “Incredible, thrilling and terrifying, so you’ve got all those things going on at the same time. But I have to confess to you that every 10 seconds it flashed through my head that this was going live everywhere in the world, if you wanted to see it, and that's terrifying.
“When it's live I deal with it, but it does go through your head. It was a great experience.”
Gibb reveals he was first approached by Chris Martin around three months prior to the festival, but gave the Coldplay frontman the chance to change his mind before committing to the appearance.
“I didn't feel I was necessary so I said, You don't need me to do it,” recounts Gibb. “He said, No, no, I want you to do it. I want you to do two songs and I said, You may change your mind. If you call me again in a month, if your people call my people in a month, I'd be delighted to do it, but I want you to have the chance to change your mind.
He called me again about two months later and I said, OK, you’ve got me! Because I want to know the people really want me to do it. It's a big gig. But the Pyramid Stage… Jesus!”
Deciding on which two songs to play was a collaborative effort, he revealed. “[Martin] specifically requested Stayin' Alive and I said, OK, I'd like to do something else, but I'll do that if you really want me to. What about the second one? He said, Well, what do you think? And I said, To Love Somebody, because it’s a great song. He said, OK, let's start with Stayin' Alive and then do To Love Somebody. In the end, we decided it should be the other way around. I think that was the right decision.”
And it seems a matter of when, not if, Gibb takes on the Sunday ‘Legends Slot’ at Glastonbury. “I'd love to [do it], there's no question about that,” he admits. “It's a great joy to be on that stage and yes, I would love it.”
Subscribers can access Gibb's Big Interview with Music Week here.
