"Michael Stipe? Never heard of him.": the time an overzealous security guard almost scuppered R.E.M.'s Glastonbury headline set

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The R.E.M. frontman had some trouble being let into the festival site when the alt-rock titans headlined back in 1999

REM live at Glastonbury vs an overzealous security guard
(Image credit: Brian Rasic/Getty Images/Paul Bradbury)

Twenty-five years ago this weekend, R.E.M. played a brilliant set at Glastonbury festival. It was Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills’ first visit to Worthy Farm but it very nearly didn’t happen, thanks to an over-eager security guard who wouldn’t let Stipe onto the site.

As reported by The Guardian back in 2000, Stipe was travelling to the festival by helicopter, with the chopper carrying him landing in a neighbouring farmer’s field and festival worker and local Robert Kearle handed the task of going to pick the megastar singer up. “They asked me to do it because of my local knowledge,” Kearle told The Guardian. “He was the biggest star of the festival so I didn’t want to mess up.”

Kearle, of course, wasn’t banking on a jobsworth security guard almost scuppering R.E.M.’s headline set. Picking Stipe up and heading back to Worthy Farm, Kearle must have had the air of mission accomplished en route with the R.E.M. man in a talkative mood. “We had a really good chat on the way,” he said. “He was great to talk to, very friendly and interested in what was happening at the festival.”

Enter Mr If You’re Name’s Not Down You’re Not Coming In, telling the pair when they arrived at the gate that if they didn’t have tickets, they weren’t coming in. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I said, ‘I’ve got Michael Stipe here, Mr Eavis sent me specially to fetch him.” But the overzealous security guard was not budging. “No ticket, no entry,” they were told. “Michael Stipe? Never heard of him.”

This is where, Kearle recalled, Stipe took matters into his own hands. Stepping out of the vehicle, he said, “I’m playing on the Pyramid Stage in a few hours. If you don’t let me in now, I’m off. You’ll have a lot of disappointed people on your hands.”

And so our antagonist relented, Michael Stipe was allowed onto the festival site, and R.E.M. performed one of the best headline slots in Glastonbury’s prestigious history…

Niall Doherty
Niall Doherty

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.