Jive talkin’ with Barry

BARRY Gibb loves people copying his highpitched singing tones.

The Bee Gees star had the entire festival singing along to helium-voiced hits like How Deep Is Your Love? yesterday afternoon during the event’s hallowed legends slot.

After battling years of criticism Barry is enjoying the love and positivity his falsetto vocals now conjure up.

He told me: “I can’t believe it – everyone is doing it now and Sam Smith is a perfect example, it’s great. But I was just playing catch up with Prince. The amount of falsetto he was using was outrageous. I would always get criticised for singing high but he used to get away with it.”

Barry was back at Glasto a year after joining Coldplay on stage for a version of Staying Alive.

Naturally people still associate Barry with his late brothers, as does he, something he wrote about on his recent solo album, In The Now.

He explained: “I touched on the idea that I can still see my brothers, even on stage, I can smell their breath around the microphone because we were so used to all singing around the same microphone.”

Barry’s band included younger family members and he’d love them to join forces as a ‘Bee Gees Part 2’ one day. He explained: “Nina my granddaughter is a great dancer. Travis – who is my third son – is into techno rock and a great DJ. Sammy – Maurice’s daughter is a really fine singer. But I’ve yet to see that commitment in her that means everything.

“It meant everything to us as the Bee Gees, everything else was secondary to being in a pop group.”

The past may haunt him, but performing for Barry is anything but a Tragedy.

He added: “Now it’s more about me as an individual seizing life.”