The Saturday Jamiroquai played the NME stage

12 November 2026 · 3 min read

If you wanted Glastonbury in 1993, you had to be early. The advance tickets were gone by the middle of June. The festival ran from Friday 25 June to Sunday 27 June on Worthy Farm at Pilton, in Somerset. The licensed crowd was 80,000, ten thousand more than the year before, after no festival at all in 1991. A ticket was £58 and a programme was £4. The festival's own history says more than £250,000 from the weekend went to Greenpeace, Oxfam and local charities.

Saturday 26 June is the day Manfred Werner's photographs are dated. One of them is the can bank: straw underfoot, tents and a pylon in the distance, and a mound of empties with a board on a post in front of it. The board reads CANS. Green and black sacks are heaped around the base.

A large mound of empty drinks cans with a sign reading CANS on a post in front of it, green and black sacks at the base, tents and an electricity pylon behind, on dry straw at Glastonbury, 26 June 1993. — The can bank at Glastonbury on 26 June 1993. Photograph by Manfred Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source page.

The Pyramid Stage that Saturday was the one built in 1981, metal sheeting on telegraph poles, a hay barn and a cowshed through the winter. Werner's picture looks back through the crowd, with knitted hats in the foreground. An Oxfam banner runs along the front, and painted cloths hang at either side. A band is on, too far away to name. That evening the stage had The Kinks at 20:45 and Lenny Kravitz at 22:45. The night before, the Velvet Underground, Robert Plant and The Black Crowes had played it at 18:45, 20:45 and 22:30. The pyramid in the photograph did not stand for another festival. In the early hours of 13 June 1994 it burned, and a local company that also supplied the NME and Jazz stages put a replacement up in time.

The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on 26 June 1993, a metal pyramid roof over a lit stage, an Oxfam banner along the front, painted cloths at the sides, and the crowd seen from behind. — The Pyramid Stage on 26 June 1993. The band on stage is too far away to name from the frame. Photograph by Manfred Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source page.

The second stage was still the NME stage, opened in 1992. A white arch covers the rig. The side banners in the pictures read NME and, in green, ONE FOOT IN THE RAVE. It kept that name until 1997, when it became the Other Stage.

Eat were on at 13:20. Werner's photograph from that Saturday, which he identifies as Eat, is two frames in one file: a long-haired singer in floral trousers and an open shirt, out at the front, and a guitarist in a yellow shirt and a dark cap. The Verve were on at 15:20. Jamiroquai followed at 16:30.

Two frames of a band on stage: a long-haired singer in floral trousers and an open shirt, and a guitarist in a yellow shirt and a dark cap, under a lighting rig. The photographer identifies them as Eat at Glastonbury on 26 June 1993. — Two frames from 26 June 1993. Manfred Werner identifies the band as Eat, who were on the NME stage at 13:20. Photograph by Manfred Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source page.

Emergency on Planet Earth, Jamiroquai's debut, was number one on the UK albums chart that week. The Official Charts list for 20 to 26 June shows it new at the top. Too Young to Die, released in March, had already reached number 10. Werner's picture of the NME set is taken from behind the crowd: a singer in a hat at the centre microphone, a bass player to one side, the lamps stacked in the arch. The running order lists Jamiroquai again on Sunday at 21:00, on the Pyramid, ahead of Wynton Marsalis. The photograph is the Saturday stage, the one with the NME banners.

The NME stage at Glastonbury, a white arched roof and lighting rig, side banners reading NME and ONE FOOT IN THE RAVE, a band on stage with a singer in a hat, and the crowd from behind. The photographer identifies the band as Jamiroquai, 26 June 1993. — The NME stage on 26 June 1993. Werner identifies the band as Jamiroquai, who were on at 16:30. Photograph by Manfred Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source page.

Stereo MC's were on the NME stage at 21:00 and The Orb at 23:00. Connected, the Stereo MC's album, was number 10 on that same chart. The festival's history names both, with Lenny Kravitz, the Velvet Underground and Galliano, among the acts of the year.

Michael Eavis had already decided the next festival would need a double fence. The Saturday was not waiting on one. The last two sets on the NME stage were a dance bill, the can bank in Werner's picture was already a hill, and the metal pyramid still had a night to play. The next June, it burned.