Glasto is so special... I go for inspiration when the festival is not on

COLDPLAY have a 25-year love affair with Glastonbury Festival but it almost never began.

- MARK JEFFERIES

The band, who have sold 100 million records around the world, will make history by headlining at Worthy Farm for a fifth time on Saturday night.

But Chris Martin has revealed how they were late for their first gig in 1999 at the New Bands Tent. And they had to sprint across miles of fields with an amp to just make their short lunchtime slot on the Saturday.

Chris, 47, who always wanted to attend the festival as a child, said: "The hunger to go there was so huge.

"Our first introduction, I think, was probably carrying a not very good amplifier with a drunken tour manager who, you know, obviously didn't know what he was doing either.

"So we sort of had a very quick intake of the whole place, and then started where you should start, which is in the New Bands Tent, first on.

"I don't think I thought about the wider, how wild it was. It was just like we were here and we're late and it's huge."

Despite the early mishap where they made it with seconds to spare, the band then played a charity show for the Eavis family who organise the festival in Somerset, with Emily Eavis a fan of the group from their first EP.

And their friendship with the family led to them headlining the Pyramid Stage early in their career - and then do it again and again like no one else.