Sir Rod Stewart has been confirmed to play Glastonbury’s legends slot in 2025.
The star will be 80 years old when he performs at the renowned Sunday afternoon slot, following in the footsteps of Dolly Parton, Shania Twain and Kylie Minogue.
Stewart said he was “proud, ready and more than able to pleasure and titillate my friends at Glastonbury”.
The news comes shortly after the star announced his plans to stop playing “large-scale world tours” at the end of 2025.
The 79-year-old’s appearance was announced by co-organiser Emily Eavis in a post on Instagram on Tuesday.
The post read: “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.”
He is known for hits including Maggie May, You Wear It Well and Sailing, accumulating 25 UK top 10 singles and 38 UK top 10 albums as a solo artist.
Stewart previously headlined the festival in 2002 alongside Coldplay and Stereophonics, performing on Sunday night to close out the festival.
That will make him the first person to have both headlined and played the legends slot at Glastonbury across their career.
He is the first musical act to be announced for Glastonbury 2025 before the festival takes a year off to allow the land to recover.
The singer first rose to fame as frontman of 70s rockers the Faces, who formed after the break-up of the Small Faces, with Stewart and now-Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood joining up with the band’s Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, and Kenney Jones.
Stewart has also performed and recorded with the Jeff Beck Group appearing on the albums Truth and Beck-Ola.
Though he has announced plans to step back at the end of next year, he made clear this does not mean full retirement.
“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 metres in 18 seconds at the jolly old age of 79,” the singer wrote on Instagram.
What is the Glastonbury legends slot?
The coveted Sunday afternoon spot at the festival is reserved for “legends” of the music industry.
This year Canadian singer Shania Twain, known for hits including Man! I Feel Like A Woman! and That Don’t Impress Me Much, starred in the slot.
The legends slot usually brings in one of the biggest crowds of the weekend, and requires an act with recognisable hits and cultural heft.
The Pyramid Stage, the festival’s biggest, hosts the slot.
He added that he may move on to “smaller venues and more intimacy”.
Before stepping back, he will also warm up for Glastonbury with a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas from March to June 2025.
He has held a 13-year residency at the iconic venue.
The singer, who will celebrate his 80th birthday in January, is a member of the US Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and was knighted in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Stewart has sold more than 120 million records worldwide across his six-decade career.
Further accolades include the Outstanding Contribution to Music award at the Brit Awards and making it into the Guinness Book of World Records for staging the largest free rock concert in history for a New Year’s Eve gig on Copacabana beach in Rio to 3.5 million people.
He won a Grammy in 2005 for the album Stardust – The Great American Songbook: Volume III, after previously having been nominated 13 times at the ceremony.
The singer, born in London to a Scottish father and English mother, has recorded duets with Dolly Parton, Elton John and Diana Ross.
Stewart had to relearn how to sing in 2000 after battling thyroid cancer and completely losing his voice after surgery.
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