The 79-year-old musician says the music festival is ‘not the way I remember it being’ after BBC ‘wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in’

Neil Young has announced that he will not perform at Glastonbury this year, saying he believes the BBC’s involvement in the festival means it is “now under corporate control”.

The 79-year-old Canadian musican wrote a letter on Tuesday on his website, Neil Young Archives, detailing why he and his band the Chrome Hearts were backing out of the music festival, held each year at Worthy Farm in Somerset.