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Tuesday June 27, 2017 16 ENtertainment

POP star Ed Sheeran has head-lined Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage, just six years after his debut at one of the festival’s smallest venues.

In 2011, the star played the solar-powered Croissant Neuf stage, playing “to about 500 people.”

On Sunday, he closed the fes-tival, attracting a much younger audience than Friday and Sat-urday’s headliners, Radiohead and Foo Fighters.

The 26-year-old admitted he was “very nervous but very excited” to be there.

“For those of you who haven’t seen one of my shows before or haven’t heard one of my songs, please pretend that you know them,” he told the audience.

“For those of you who have, please sing all of the words.”

“The aim of tonight is to lose our voices,” he added. “I’m going to lose mine as well.”

The audience took him up on the challenge; joining in wistfully as he sang the ballads “Photograph” and “Thinking Out Loud.”

They didn’t quite keep up, however, with the spittle-fl ecked “Take It Back” — a whirlwind of wordplay in which Sheeran declared: “I’m not a rapper, I’m a singer with a fl ow.”

The star played, as he usually does, without a band; using a loop pedal to layer his vocal and guitar lines and create a backing track live, on the spot.

This created problems during “Bloodstream” when his guitar slipped out of tune but, for the most part, the sound was impressive: Sheeran can build up or break down a song at will, a skill honed by years of relent-less gigging in his teens.

Highlights included “The A Team,” which he sang illumi-nated by the audience, who held

their phones aloft, creating the impression of 80,000 fi refl ies bobbing around the fi elds of Worthy Farm.

Sheeran also invited tradi-tional Irish band Beoga on stage to accompany him on “Nancy Mulligan,” a song about his paternal grandmother.

It was a moment that reeked of cheese but, watched from the side of the stage by his grand-father, Sheeran made it seem genuine.

This is the secret to his appeal. His brand of pop can be innocuous and twee — but Sheeran sells it with an earnest, everyman shtick that demol-ishes the divide between artist and audience.

However you respond to his music, it is clear he strikes a chord, especially with the YouTube gen-eration who prioritise relatability over the preening mannerisms of, say, Mick Jagger.

Sheeran exploits it effortlessly. On head-lining Glastonbury, he told the crowd: “I’d like to say it was a dream of mine, but I never thought I’d get to the point where I was play-ing this stage, let alone headlining it.”

And to Glastonbury itself, Sheeran’s appeal to under-30s is para-mount: Those are the fans the festival needs to replenish its audience and survive.

That’s why this year saw more pop and grime acts than ever, from Charli XCX to Katy Perry; from Wiley to Stormzy.

On Sunday, the fes-tival also saw sets from Royal Blood, Courteen-ers, Foo Fighters, The Jacksons, Radiohead and The Killers — who played a secret show on the John Peel stage

Sunday evening.“They say you play the John

Peel Stage twice in your career — once on the way up, and once on the way down,” said front-

man Brandon Flowers.“It’s great to be back.”Earlier Monday, the Pyra-

mid Stage briefl y turned into Studio 54, with consecutive sets from Bee Gee Barry Gibb and funk band Chic drawing one of the biggest crowds of the weekend.

And LA band Haim literally brought the audience at The Other Stage to its knees.

The band, who were debuting songs from their new album, “Something to Tell You,” encouraged the crowd to dance lower and lower towards the ground until, eventually, they were lying down on the grass.

“All I wanted was a dance party,” bassist Este Haim told the BBC afterwards, “and then Glastonbury danced with me. We tangoed.”

Sunday also saw sets from Shaggy, Emeli Sande, London Grammar and Biffy Clyro, who threw down the gauntlet to Sheeran with a ferocious volley of rock riffs on the Pyramid Stage.

There is no Glastonbury in 2018, meaning that there are 731 days until Worthy Farm opens its gates again.

(SD-Agencies)

Ed Sheeran closes Glastonbury 2017

PIXAR’S Andrew Stanton, who served as a writer on each “Toy Story” fi lm in the blockbuster ani-mated series, has declared the viral backstory of Andy’s father false.

“Complete and utter fake news. Everyone go back to your homes. Nothing to see here, folks. #iwasthere,” Stanton tweeted shortly after the story, told by product designer and reviewer Mike Mozart, went viral.

Mozart claimed to be friends with deceased former Pixar head writer, Joe Ranft, who allegedly shared the backstory of the miss-ing father from the fi lms to Mozart at a meeting. Mozart shared the story with Youtubers SuperCar-linBrothers.

According to Mozart’s debunked story, Andy’s dad — also named Andy — was the original owner of

Woody. Sometime around 1959, Andy Sr. was diagnosed with polio and his toys were then destroyed, but he managed to spare Woody, Slinky and Mr. Potato Head from destruction by hiding them in a box under his bed.

A few decades later, Andy Sr. was married and had a son of his own. Together, the family moved into Andy Sr.’s parent’s home,where he was stricken with Post-Polio Syn-drome. In his fi nal moments with his son, Andy Sr., bedridden, gives Junior a key and asks him to bring a chest down from the attic. Unfor-tunately, when Andy Jr. returns, his father has passed away.

Later, at his dad’s funeral, Andy opens the chest using the key his father left him. Inside, he fi nds Woody Slinky and Mr. Potato Head. (SD-Agencies)

‘Toy Story’ writer Andrew Stanton debunks backstory of Andy’s dad

Sheeran attracts a signifi cantly younger audience to the Pyramid Stage. SD-Agencies

Ed SheeranEd Sheeran