CMAT live at Glastonbury: the arrival of a superstar
In the sweltering early afternoon heat on Worthy Farm, the Irish singer and her Very Sexy Band become the great entertainers of 2025
“I’m CMAT, I have middle child syndrome, an amazing ass and the best Irish rock and roll country band in the world!” Ciara Mary Alice Thompson tells a huge Pyramid Stage crowd in the sweltering heat on the first day of Glastonbury 2025.
It’s rare that a standout set, unlikely to be beaten for the whole weekend, arrives so early on the Friday afternoon at Worthy Farm, but the Irish singer is on a roll of stunning momentum right now, and seizes her biggest stage yet superbly.
She tells the crowd that this is the scariest moment of her life, but commands the enormous field with apparent ease, making the crowd laugh, sing and do the Dunboyne, County Meath Two-Step with pure delight. Her songs come from a base of country music but are also packed with hooks, performed impeccably by The Very Sexy CMAT Band.
Before new song ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’, she commands the attention of the camera as she explains that the song isn’t actually a diss track about the TV chef, but a meditation on her own ability to hate. It’s one of countless songs in her catalogue to bring poignancy and laughs together in a way that dilutes neither.
Many might have been drawn to this set via the viral TikTok dance to ‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’ – the ‘woke macarena’ as it’s been dubbed – but it takes more than that to become a true star with longevity.
Luckily, CMAT has it all. Her songs are catchy, poignant and well-crafted; on stage, she’s a powerhouse of performance, cracking gags and diving into the crowd, but not forgetting to make her final statement a call for a free Palestine. Come the end of 2025, she’ll be the artist that defines the year.
Keep up to date with all our coverage from Glastonbury 2025 here.