Five classic festival appearances that made a band / artist

Images: Orbital / Daft Punk

Playing a music festival can make or break any band or artist who's aiming for the big time. Get it right and the exposure can send you heading for the headline slot and guaranteed platinum status. Get it wrong and come next year you might be struggling to fill that mid-morning slot on the puppet stage.

Over the year's several iconic musicians have found their careers defined by an individual festival appearance. All of a sudden they've been thrust into the spotlight or it's been the set that has reminded everyone what live legends they are.

It's the dream of every band or solo performer to play a gig like this. Who knows? Maybe we'll see a few this year from the likes of Stone Roses, Coldplay or Adele, but for now here's our countdown of five classic festival appearances that have gone down in history as the ones that both musicians and fans remember.

Jimi Hendrix - Monterey Festival, 1967

Credited as the festival which sparked the first Summer of Love, Monterey International Pop Festival has also gone down in history as the event that introduced Jimi Hendrix to a US audience. Although already popular in Europe, it wasn't until Paul McCartney recommended the American-born Hendrix to the festival's organisers that the a true global star was born.

Introduced by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Hendrix tore up the stage with wild cover versions of Howlin' Wolf's 'Killing Floor', Bob Dylan's 'Like A Rolling Stone' and most famously of all, The Troggs' 'Wild Thing'. But it was when the guitarist set alight his own instrument that the gig reached true legendary status and gave rock n roll one of its most iconic images.  

Nirvana - Reading Festival, 1991

Nirvana's first of two appearances at the Reading Festival marked a pivotal breakthrough for the band. Earlier that year they had completed recording the album that would be released as the classic Nevermind and by the time they arrived on stage in Berkshire the likes of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and ' In Bloom' had been road tested in full.

Playing to a crowd estimated at around 35,000 and by the far the biggest they'd ever played to, Nirvana ripped through a set heavy on songs that were about to become standards. Kurt Cobain, who had spent the day drinking cough syrup, flew into Dave Grohl's drum kit at the climax, leaving his arm in a sling for the rest of the weekend. Krist Novoselic described the gig as "the last of the unknown Nirvana". He was right and the next summer they would be headlining. 

Orbital - Glastonbury, 1994

It seems strange now, but there was a time when dance music was not ubiquitous at music festivals and it was an unheard of move when rave icons Orbital were asked to headline the NME stage on Saturday 25th June. What happened next has gone down in Glasto history as brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll gave 40,000 punters their first taste of stadium techno during a scorchingly hot festival.

A year later Glastonbury introduced its first Dance Tent and these days it's the sound of drum'n'bass, garage and grime that soundtracks the late nights and early mornings and not The Levellers. For that we can thank Orbital.

Radiohead - Glastonbury, 1997

Consistently voted one of the finest gigs of all time, Radiohead's performance on June 28th 1997 has become the benchmark for all other Glastonbury headliners. Already seen as one of the nineties key acts after the release of The Bends, by the time they arrived on stage at one of the festival's muddier affairs, their soon-to-be seminal album OK Computer was only a fortnight old.

But windswept performances of the likes of 'Paranoid Android', 'Karma Police' and 'No Surprises' turned them into alt rock classics and torpedoed Radiohead towards the kind of legendary status others can only dream of.    

Daft Punk - Coachella, 2006

It took a long time for America to get dance music, but the breakthrough moment, according to many, was Daft Punk's revolutionary show at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Much of the credit goes to first appearance of the French duo's now-legendary pyramid - a futuristic command centre surrounded by geometric shapes.

The ensuing show was a visual hit, helping take a sound that would later become EDM into the American mainstream and providing the previously faceless genre with a visual aid that changed the game for everyone. It also brought Daft Punk in from the cold, once again affirming them as game changers after their underwhelming 2005 LP Human After all.

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