Music and madness at Glastonbury

By Iona Millership

GLASTONBURY (Reuters) - Glastonbury music festival, one of the world's biggest, opened on Wednesday with legends such as The Who billed alongside Las Vegas rockers The Killers at concerts expected to be played out in slippery mud.

Gates opened early on Wednesday and more than 175,000 festival goers will flock to the venue, set up as a hippy haven in the 1970s.

The event officially kicks off on Friday for three solid days of outdoor music, dance, market stalls, poetry, theatre and circus entertainment, but enthusiastic fans set up camp first.

Headliners include acts such as the Arctic Monkeys, Modest Mouse, Kaiser Chiefs, Manic Street Preachers, Bjork, Bright Eyes and Arcade Fire with classics like Iggy and the Stooges, and newcomers Patrick Wolf and Mr Hudson and the Library.

As well as music and performance, this year revellers can join "The Big Kiss," a bid to break the Guinness World Record for the biggest amount of people kissing at one time.

Event organiser Jason Stockwood says: "We're expecting to trounce the current World Record of more than 6,400 couples, which was set in Hungary earlier this year, by getting 45,000 people to kiss the person next to them."

There is a glittering and varied musical line-up.

Mainstream sensations will play alongside Welsh diva Shirley Bassey. There is a rumour that rock stars Pete Doherty and Carl Barat will reunite as The Libertines for the festival.