Technical Glitch Blights Virtual Glastonbury Festival

Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival
Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival
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Technical Glitch Blights Virtual Glastonbury Festival

Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival
Reuters file photo of people attending the Glastonbury Festival

A technical fault on Saturday left frustrated fans unable to access Glastonbury Festival's livestream concert at the famous farm site in southwest England, after the coronavirus pandemic led to the blockbuster event's cancellation.

The five-hour virtual show kicked off with a performance by British rockers Wolf Alice, but many ticket-holders, who had paid £20 ($28, 23 euros) to access a stream of the event, complained on Twitter that they missed it as their access codes were invalid.

"You've got thousands and thousands of us tweeting you saying we can't get in due to invalid codes. Almost 10 minutes in and we've all missed the start," wrote Twitter user Aimee Young.

Event producers Driift Live tweeted: "Hello! We're looking into the issues of invalid codes urgently."

Organizers later sent out a free link in time for an atmospheric sunset performance by US pop rock trio Haim in Worthy Farm's stone circle.

They were followed by Glastonbury veterans Coldplay, who performed in front of the skeleton of the Pyramid stage, where the headline acts usually perform.

Frontman Chris Martin joked that he had "never played in front of thousands of cows before" as he and his band braved the rain to perform classic hits such as "The Scientist", "Clocks" and "Fix You".

Other performers include Blur's Damon Albarn and Michael Kiwanuka.

Organizer Emily Eavis, who announced in January that the annual event was cancelled for a second year, said had hoped the event would be "like the festival but without people".

"We're very excited to be able to show the farm in a way that people have never really seen it, with these incredible artists," she told BBC radio.

The event will also be played on delay across four international time zones, with Eavis adding there will be "a number of unannounced surprise performances".

Paul Dugdale, the event's director, said he hoped to recreate the event's sense of adventure.

"The overarching vision of it was to... just try and take people on a bit of a journey.

"Glastonbury is an adventure, and you never quite know what's around the corner and often the best parts of the festival are the parts you weren't expecting, and that's really fun," he said.



‘Dirty Dancing,’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ ‘Up in Smoke’ among Movies Entering the National Film Registry

 This image released by the Library of Congress shows James Cagney, right, in a scene from the 1938 film "Angels with Dirty Faces." (Warner Bros/Discovery/Library of Congress via AP)
This image released by the Library of Congress shows James Cagney, right, in a scene from the 1938 film "Angels with Dirty Faces." (Warner Bros/Discovery/Library of Congress via AP)
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‘Dirty Dancing,’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ ‘Up in Smoke’ among Movies Entering the National Film Registry

 This image released by the Library of Congress shows James Cagney, right, in a scene from the 1938 film "Angels with Dirty Faces." (Warner Bros/Discovery/Library of Congress via AP)
This image released by the Library of Congress shows James Cagney, right, in a scene from the 1938 film "Angels with Dirty Faces." (Warner Bros/Discovery/Library of Congress via AP)

Nobody puts baby in a corner, but they're putting her in the National Film Registry.

“Dirty Dancing,” along with another 1980s culture-changer, “Beverly Hills Cop,” are entering the Library of Congress' registry, part of an annual group of 25 announced Wednesday that spans 115 years of filmmaking.

“Dirty Dancing” from 1987 used the physicality and chemistry of Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle and Jennifer Grey as Frances “Baby” Houseman to charm generations of moviegoers, while also taking on issues like abortion, classism and antisemitism. In the climactic moment, Swayze defiantly declares, “Nobody puts baby in a corner” before taking Grey to dance to “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.”

1984's “Beverly Hills Cop,” the first Eddie Murphy film in the registry, arguably made him the world's biggest movie star at the time and made action comedies a blockbuster staple for a decade.

Since 1988, the Librarian of Congress has annually selected movies for preservation that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant. The current picks bring the registry to 900 films. Turner Classic Movies will host a TV special on Wednesday, screening a selection of the class of 2024.

The oldest film is from 1895 and brought its own form of dirty dancing: “Annabelle Serpentine Dance” is a minute-long short of a shimmying Annabelle Moore that was decried by many as a public indecency for the suggestiveness of her moves. The newest is David Fincher's “The Social Network" from 2010.

A look at some of the films entering the registry “Pride of the Yankees” (1942): The film became the model for the modern sports tear-jerker, with Gary Cooper playing Lou Gehrig and delivering the classic real-life line: “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

“The Miracle Worker” (1962): Anne Bancroft won an Oscar for best actress for playing title character Anne Sullivan and 16-year-old Patty Duke won best supporting actress for playing her deaf and blind protege Helen Keller in director Arthur Penn's film.

“Up in Smoke” (1978): The first feature to star the duo of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong established a template for the stoner genre and brought weed culture to the mainstream. Marin, who also appears in the inductee “Spy Kids” from 2001, is one of many Latinos with prominent roles in this year's crop of films.

“Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan” (1982): The second movie in the “Star Trek” franchise featured one of filmdom's great villains in Ricardo Montalban's Khan, and showed that the world of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock could bring vital thrills to the cinema.

“Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt” (1989): The Oscar-winning documentary on the NAMES Project Aids Memorial Quilt was a landmark telling of the devastation wrought by the disease.

“My Own Private Idaho” (1991): Director Gus Van Sant's film featured perhaps the greatest performance of River Phoenix, a year before the actor's death at age 23.

“American Me” (1992): Edward James Olmos starred and made his film directorial debut in this tale of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles and the brutal prison experience of its main character.

“No Country for Old Men” (2007): Joel and Ethan Coen broke through at the Oscars with their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, winning best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay, while Javier Bardem won best supporting actor for playing a relentless killer with an unforgettable haircut.