Olivia Rodrigo live at Glastonbury: The best headliner of the whole weekend

You’ll often find that the best Glastonbury headliners succeed at Worthy Farm because they realise it’s a gig like no other. Pull out the stops, do something special and you’ll easily enough cement your place in Glasto folklore.

Step forward Olivia Rodrigo, then, who marks her own occasion on the Pyramid by bringing out a bonafide Glastonbury legend in the form of The Cure’s Robert Smith to rip through a joyous ‘Friday I’m In Love’, before the king of the goths sticks around for ‘Just Like Heaven’ too. It’s a brilliant moment to watch and by getting a venerable legend like Smith in her corner she delivers the ultimate riposte to people who questioned whether the 22-year-old had what it takes for this biggest of gigs.

But if we’re being honest, that ultimate riposte began from the moment Rodrigo arrived on stage and ripped through a thunderous run of ‘bad idea right’. It was loud, in your face and unforgettable. Here was Rodrigo delivering the best headline set of the weekend and, by some distance, pulling in the biggest crowd too.

It’s easy to forget how many hits she has at such a young age too, but it speaks volumes that ‘drivers license’ – the song that shot Rodrigo to global fame in 2021 – is played just four songs in and yet the show loses no momentum at all. Inbetween songs we learn that Rodrigo is an unabashed anglophile, which results in the charming moment when M&S confectionary like Colin the Caterpillar and necking pints at midday are listed as some of her favourite things about Britain. The roar she receives back firmly suggests that a large deal of the crowd have been following that latter boozy point all day.

She first played here in 2022 and stole that show then with the unforgettable moment when she named each judge responsible for overturning Roe v Wade that very weekend, before performing Lily Allen’s ‘Fuck You’ with the singer. It immediately felt like she was destined for the Pyramid the next time around. Now, she has grabbed that step up with a set that electrified her die-hard younger fans and, you sense, won over a few older ones too. A superstar at the peak of her powers.

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