The Killers bring out the Pet Shop Boys and Johnny Marr at Glastonbury

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The Killers drew the biggest crowd of the weekend so far

The Killers marked their second Glastonbury headline slot by bringing out the Pet Shop Boys, Johnny Marr and Jimmy Carr for a celebratory encore.

The Pet Shop Boys played their cover of Elvis’s Always On My Mind, along with The Killers’ own Human.

Then Johnny Marr arrived for a version of This Charming Man – 35 years after The Smiths’ only Glastonbury show.

The song’s familiar jangly riff drew a huge cheer from the crowd – by far the biggest at the Pyramid Stage this year.

“They say never meet your heroes,” said frontman Brandon Flowers, “but I say that went over alright.”

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Johnny Marr stuck around to play Mr Brightside as The Killers closed their set

The Killers had already played a triumphant, two-hour set before the encore, opening with the powerful one-two punch of Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine and Somebody Told Me, both from their debut album Hot Fuss.

Flowers was, as ever, a restless frontman – straddling the monitors and flitting between his keyboard and the microphone stand as he worked the audience into a frenzy.

The set was sprinkled with singalongs, from the chiming pop of Spaceman to the muscular Springsteen-isms of When You Were Young.

Flowers also dedicated an emotional version of A Dustland Fairytale to his mother, Jean, who died of cancer in 2010, aged 64.

“We wrote this next song a million miles from here,” he told the audience. “We’re a long way from home tonight. But you know, home isn’t always a place. Home is a person. Looking back at my childhood home was my mother. And her light went out too soon.”

He continued: “There isn’t a grave deep enough, there isn’t a grave dark enough to keep her light out of my life.”

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Flowers was a commanding, energetic frontman

Just before the encore, comedian Jimmy Carr appeared on stage, pretending to be a roadie, sweeping up confetti and testing the mics for no apparent reason other than it seemed like fun.

The set closed with a triumphant version of Mr Brightside (it had been trending on Twitter for an hour beforehand, as fans clamoured to hear the band’s signature song), putting to rest the ghosts of The Killers’ first Glastonbury headline slot, in 2007.

That gig was marred by sound problems that “put a cloud over the experience,” Flowers told the NME earlier this week.

The Killers were preceded on the Pyramid Stage by Liam Gallagher, who front-loaded his set with material from his debut solo album, As You Were.

Predictably, these didn’t go down as well as the Oasis material he saved for the end of his set – with Columbia and Wonderwall sounding particularly fresh and vital, and a moving, but all-too-brief, version of Champagne Supernova dedicated to Prodigy frontman Keith Flint, who died earlier this year.

Liam also dedicated Slide Away to a woman called Lauren – but who is she?

Gallagher’s voice isn’t the force it once was, though, and his continued taunting of older brother Noel – whom he calls “a little fart” – is just tedious.

At one point, he thanks Michael and Emily Eavis for “letting me continue my Glasto residency” and, for all his faults, its unlikely this is the last we’ll see of him.

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Liam Gallagher was a big crowd-pleaser

Glastonbury is nothing if not a broad church, though, and Saturday’s line-up was especially eclectic – with The Proclaimers, Carrie Underwood and Janet Jackson gracing the main stage alone.

Jackson, making her Glastonbury debut, was accused of miming by some television viewers – but while she certainly relied on backing tracks to reinforce her vocals, the majority of her set seemed to be performed live, from the audience at least.

Elsewhere, hip-hop trailblazers Wu-Tang Clan were compellingly raucous on the West Holts stage, as they celebrated the 25th anniversary of their landmark album 36 Chambers.

The Chemical Brothers topped the bill on the Other Stage for a record-breaking fifth time – bathing the audience in colour with a typically-ambitious light show.

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Wu-Tang Clan take to the West Holts stage

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One of Sigrid’s fans was overcome with emotion

Elsewhere, Foals played an intense, incendiary secret show on the Park Stage, while pop star Sigrid’s set was memorable mainly for the young girl in the front row who was so overcome with joy she spent the whole set in tears.

Scottish troubador Lewis Capaldi was also a bit weepy – wiping away a tear after 60,000 people sang his hit Someone You Loved back to him.

“It was the first time I got a bit emotional on stage,” he told the BBC later. “But I didn’t expect to see so many people; and people on each other’s shoulders, going all the way back.

“It was just mad, man. So, so weird.”

Capaldi also used his set to poke fun at Noel Gallagher, playing a video of the star wondering aloud, “Who’s this Capaldi figure?”

As the clip played on a loop, Capaldi walked on stage in an oversized trench coat, which he removed to reveal a T-shirt with a giant picture of Noel’s face.

Before the festival, Capaldi told his 2.7m Instagram followers that being “slagged off” by Noel meant he had “peaked”.

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Lewis Capaldi has played three shows at the festival this weekend

Glastonbury rolls into its final day on Sunday, with sets from Kylie Minogue, Miley Cyrus, Christine + The Queens and headliners The Cure.

You can follow the action on BBC TV and radio, the BBC Glastonbury website, and Glastonbury radio.

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