In pictures: the coolest guitars of Glastonbury 2025
Glastonbury is the biggest and most iconic music festival on earth, and so it stands to reason that with over 3,000 performers stepping on stage at Worthy Farm every that there will be plenty of extremely cool and interesting guitars getting shown off to the world along with it.
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But some guitars stand out more than others, either for their uniqueness, rarity or sheer incongruity. With that in mind, here are the coolest guitars we saw at Glastonbury over the weekend.
Photo by Harry Durrant/Getty Images
Matty Healy’s Octave Fuzz Telecaster
The 1975 headlined the Pyramid Stage on Friday night, and while Adam Hann might do most of the guitar work for the band these days (often leaning on his trusty paint-spattered Music Man JP6), frontman Matty Healy’s guitar choice for the evening was definitely one of the most interesting.
The guitar itself caught my eye instantly because how many Teles do you see with see-through scratchplates for one? But then on closer inspection you can spot some very un-standard wiring inside too.
That’s for good reason – the guitar is a creation of one of the Fender Custom Shop’s most interesting builders, Levi Perry. Perry has rapidly earned a rep for loading his builds with built-in effects, and this Fuzz Brain ’67 Tele is no exception – sporting built in fuzz, octave and delay circuits.
Healy didn’t seem to use any of them in anger during Friday night’s set, but it’s still one of the cooler takes on a ‘Smuggler’ Tele out there.
Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage
Beabadoobee’s Fairlaine Zephyr
London boutique luthier Fairlane has been building a cult following among British and Irish artists over the last couple of years, with everyone from Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite, to Fontaines DC’s Conor Curley and of course, Beatrice Laus herself.
You may have heard of them under their previous monicker of Providence, which is the name still branded on the headstock of this custom pink Zephyr that has been Bea’s guitar of choice for a few years now.
Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage
Rhian Teasdale’s BC Rich Mockingbird Acrylic
Whisper it friends, but is BC Rich about to make a comeback as the ironically cool musician’s guitar of choice?
Phoebe Bridgers has been playing various BC Rich guitars on stage for a few years now (and memorably trashed one on stage during her SNL appearance in 2021), and now Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale seems to be taking it to another level with this super-rare Mockingbird Acrylic in Antifreeze yellow.
There’s a price to pay to look this cool however – the lucite-bodied Mockingbird are legendarily heavy… no wonder she didn’t play guitar much in her set.
Elsewhere in Wet Leg, lead guitarist Hester Chambers seems to have ditched her offsets for a Kramer Galaxie, leading me to wonder if the SuperStrat might be also prime for a crossover comeback?
With Turnstile’s Meg Mills and Olivia Rodrigo guitarist Daisy Spencer also rocking Jackson Super at Glasto this weekend, the evidence is mounting…
Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage
Ron Wood’s Zemaitis ‘Disc Front’
The Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood joined his former Faces bandmate Rod Stewart on stage for Glasto’s Sunday afternoon legends slot, and it was fitting then that he did so sporting one of his most iconic guitars ever.
The Tony Zemaitis ‘Disc Front’ guitar was created for Ronnie around 1971, and he’s used the guitar throughout his time in both The Faces and The Stones. The UK luthier’s distinctive metal- and pearl-fronted guitars were used by pretty much everyone from that era – including Hendrix, Harrison and Wood’s bandmate Keith Richards – but Ronnie remains the brand’s most dedicated exponent.
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Noah Kahan’s Fender Coronado
We’ve been used to seeing Noah Kahan playing a variety of Gibson semis and acoustics as he’s exploded into a global superstar over the last couple of years, but the Glastonbury set was notable for some interesting Fender semi-hollow diversions.
The most heavily featured was a vintage black Fender Starcaster, with those all-important Wide-Range humbuckers, but the most striking was undoubtedly a love-it-or-loathe-it Antigua Burst Coronado.
Photo by Harry Durrant/Getty Images
Ellie Rowsell’s 1970s Gretsch Super Chet
The Wolf Alice frontwoman has tended to lean on Fender Telecasters and Jazzmasters as live guitars over the London band’s first 15 years, but her current main guitar squeeze is an interesting Gretsch curio.
The Super Chet is an evolution of the Chet Atkins guitar and sports pickguard-mounted controls and some ornate pearl work on the fretboard and headstock. A very unusual Gretsch that was only made between 1973 and 1980.
Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images
Olivia Rodrigo’s modded vintage Mustang
The US pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo brought the curtain down on the festival on Sunday night, and while she played a custom purple Music Man St Vincent on tour last year, recently she’s switched it up to a bunch of red Fender offsets.
The pick of the bunch is this vintage Mustang, which from the looks of things appears to be a mid-60s example with suitably yellowed pearlescent pickguard and a fair few battle scars – but the most interesting thing from a guitar-nerd perspective is the tailpiece.
Rather than the classic Mustang tremolo system, Rodrigo’s example pairs a very non-vintage Mastery bridge with a unique hardtail tailpiece – I’ve never seen anything like this elsewhere, so I’ll assume it’s custom.
Photo by Jim Dyson/Redferns
Neil Young’s Old Black
Neil Young might have faced some stern competition from Charli XCX when he headlined Saturday night, but for a guitar connoisseur there really wasn’t any question where you’d want to be.
Young brought out some of his most iconic instruments, including Hank Williams’ 1941 D-28, his Bigsby-loaded ’54 Goldtop and of course, the most iconic and legendary of them all Old Black.
The black-refinished 1953 Les Paul with a Firebird mini-humbucker in the bridge and a Bigsby vibrato has been Young’s constant companion since his Buffalo Springfield days, and it is without doubt the most iconic and special guitar to feature at Glastonbury 2025.
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