Olivia Rodrigo leaves Glastonbury on a high

Yahoo

2 days ago

Glastonbury saved the best 'til last, with a triumphant set by American star Olivia Rodrigo to close the festival's Pyramid Stage.
After the artifice and intensity of previous headliners The 1975 and Neil Young, the 22-year-old stomped her way through a series of crisp, punk-pop anthems and heartfelt ballads about the injustices of young love.
She charmed her English fans by professing her love for Marks and Spencers' Colin The Caterpillar sweets; and won over Glastonbury veterans by duetting with The Cure's Robert Smith ("perhaps the best songwriter to come out of England").
"Glastonbury's been my dream festival forever and I can't believe today's the day," she beamed.
The set was a crowning moment for the singer, who only released her first single, Drivers License, five years ago.
A desperate cry of loneliness, the ballad broke Spotify streaming records in just 24 hours. Then it broke them again.
Seven days later, it entered the UK and the US charts at number one, instantly catapulting the singer from Disney actress to fully-fledged pop star.
Drivers License cast her as "the sad piano girl" in the public imagination - but she quickly deconstructed that image with a flurry of dynamic, guitar-heavy pop anthems that built on the templates established by Joan Jett, Alanis Morisette and Avril Lavigne.
It was those sounds that opened her Glastonbury set, with the crunchy riffs of Obsessed, a self-mocking song about her jealousy; and the semi-autobiographical Diary Of A Homeschooled Girl.
Dressed in a white lace corset and knee-high bovver boots, she high-kicked across the stage, whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
"How are we doing tonight Glastonbury," she screamed. "I don't think I've ever seen so many people in my life.
"Guys, it's the last night of the festival. Are you ready to have some fun?"
She undercut the question slightly by launching into Drivers License - but watching the army of young fans holler those lyrics back at her, there was a communal sense of catharsis, at least.
The rest of the set balanced her competing impulses: rock chick, singer-songwriter, rabble rouser, strident feminist, heartfelt balladeer.
But above all else, she's a music fan. Her decision to duet with Glastonbury veteran Robert Smith, rather than a pop contemporary like Harry Styles or Lorde, flowed directly from her love of 80s British pop.
As they played The Cure classics Friday I'm in Love and Just Like Heaven, Rodrigo kept glancing over at Smith, beaming from ear to ear, like she couldn't believe her luck.
She added little harmonies to the songs, embellishing without being disrespectful – and Smith seemed to be just as enamoured with Rodrigo as she was with him, watching the rest of her set from the wings of the Pyramid Stage.
"He's the nicest, most wonderful man ever and I'm so honoured to play with him tonight," she gushed.
That guilelessness worked in her favour. For the audience, it often felt like watching your cool older sister (or your precocious young daughter) up on stage, rather than some untouchable pop star.
What's more, Rodrigo needed none of the usual pop star props. There was no choreography. Until the encore, there was only one costume. All she required were the songs and her pin-sharp, all-female band.
She charmed the audience even more as she introduced the new wavey So American – a song about the inside jokes she shared with an English boyfriend.
"I love England so much," she said. "I love how nobody judges you for having a pint at noon. I love English sweets, all the sweets from M&S, Colin the Caterpillar specifically.
"True story: I have had three sticky toffee puddings since coming to Glastonbury. And as luck would have it, I love English boys."
England loved her right back, saving their biggest reaction for her encore – a headlong rush through Brutal, All American Bitch, Good 4 U and Get Him Back.
She left the stage under a downpour of fireworks, as inflatable balls bounced around the audience and our ears rang with feedback.
It was, hands down, the best (and best-attended) headline set of the weekend.
Olivia Rodrigo had understood the brief: Bring the hits. Make it unique. And make it personal.
Perhaps she'd learned that from Jarvis Cocker, whom she'd watched from her boyfriend's shoulders on Saturday.
"To enjoy Glastonbury, you have to submit to it," he advised.
Rodrigo channeled that spirit innately. She's welcome back any time.
Earlier on Sunday, The Selecter opened up the final day of music on the Pyramid Stage, with an energetic set of punchy ska anthems.
Singer Pauline Black, a former NHS worker, dedicated Frontline to her colleagues, saying we'd thank them when we needed their help for "all those knees and all those hips in the not-so-distant future".
And the crowd carried her through the band's biggest hit, On The Radio, as her voice cracked on the trilling high notes.
"As you can tell, my voice is hurting," she explained. "Are you going to help me?"
They didn't need asking twice.
Celeste took our breath away with a grungier, angrier sound than the floaty jazz-soul of her debut.
The singer, who won the BBC's Sound Of 2020, has taken five years to follow up her chart topping album, Not Your Muse, but told the audience "everything happens when it's supposed to".
On the basis of Everyday - an excoriating, paranoid track built around Death In Vegas's 1999 dance hit Dirge - the new material has been worth the wait.
Also previewing new material was London soul-pop singer Joy Crookes. Dressed in a striking pink and green sari, she sauntered through the bassy grooves of recent singles Pass The Salt and Carmen, coming across like a latter-day Amy Winehouse.
The highlight of her set was the new single Perfect Crime - with a chorus so immaculate that the crowd had picked it up after one refrain.
After an unexpectedly nostalgic set from The Libertines, Rod Stewart took to the Pyramid Stage in the prestigious "legend slot".
In full lounge lizard style, he played big band arrangements of hits like Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, Maggie May and The First Cut Is The Deepest, full of bubbly blonde backing vocals and endless saxophone solos.
Despite promising to "get in as many hits as I can", the set had a wobbly start, with a couple of lesser-known numbers.
But he found his groove with 1984's Some Guys Have All The Luck, after which the jukebox served up hit after hit. Ronnie Wood came out for a chummy duet on the Faces' Stay With Me (an obvious highlight) before Stewart closed his set with a maritime singalong on We Are Sailing.
He was followed by Nile Rodgers and Chic who, it has to be said, drew an even bigger crowd for their feel-good disco anthems.
The song choices were faultless, ranging from Chic's Le Freak and Good Times, to the songs Rodgers produced for Bowie (Let's Dance, Modern Love) and Madonna (Like A Virgin, Material Girl) in the 80s.
As they played, a biplane flew over the Pyramid Stage and drew a smiley face and a love heart in the sky. It couldn't have come at a better time.
Over at the Woodsies stage, AJ Tracey gave a masterclass in crowd work.
"I asked you for a mosh pit and I'm not gonna lie to you, it was weak," he scolded, promising to give the crowd something to really get their teeth into.
At that point, Aitch burst onto the stage for the pair's 2020 collaboration, Rain.
To say the energy ramped up would be an understatement on par with saying the surface of the sun is a little warm to the touch.
The set continued with a clutch of UK rap anthems - Ladbroke Grove, Thiago Silva, Kiss and Tell - turning it into one of the weekend's sweatiest shows.
Other standout sets on the festivals' final day included The Prodigy, who dedicated their set on The Other Stage to late frontman Keith Flint; and Jorja Smith, who provided a soothing set of British soul for the festival's more weary revellers.
Wolf Alice delivered a crowd-pleasing cover of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams on The Other Stage, but it was their ode to friendship, Bros, that sent the audience into rapture.
Old friends, best mates and new-found companions hugged each other and swayed deliriously to the song's "me and you" refrain.
The band only played two songs from their highly-anticipated fourth album, The Clearing - but lead single Bloom Baby Bloom was treated like an old friend.
The new material is more angular, more face-forward than their previous work; and lead singer Ellie Rowsell seemed to be enjoying her newfound confidence as a frontwoman.
After the delicious love song The Sofa, she poured a bottle of water over her head, shook off the droplets, grabbed a megaphone and screamed out the lyrics to the band's two loudest, punkiest songs, Yuk Foo and Greatest Hits.
Expect to see them at the top of the bill when Glastonbury returns in 2027.
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