Leonard Cohen will entertain the masses at Glastonbury, it was revealed, as the line-up for Europe’s biggest music festival was confirmed.

The gloomy troubadour will join headliners The Verve, Kings of Leon and Jay-Z at the Somerset event in June, attended by 150,000 fans.

Cohen, 73, and Neil Diamond, 67, will perform at the three-day festival, which is increasingly seen as an opportunity to introduce veteran artists to a younger audience.

Hopes that Blur would stage a reunion appearance came to naught. Radiohead, a Glastonbury favourite, said they would attend but have no plans to play.

Friday night presents a major opportunity for US rockers Kings of Leon to prove they are a headline act. It is also a gamble to offer American rap star Jay-Z the Saturday night slot, usually taken by a rock band with a catalogue of crowd-pleasers.

The Verve, who reformed to widespread acclaim, last year will send the hordes home with hits including Bittersweet Symphony and appropriately, The Drugs Don’t Work.

Fans can register to attend now on the official Glastonbury website. The scramble for tickets will take place on April 6. Michael Eavis, the farmer who owns the Worthy Farm site, promised to make the event more accessible to younger fans, after complaints that the festival has become too tame.

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