There’s a real ease to this year’s Glastonbury and many of its bookings have a feelgood theme, leaning on nostalgia, familiarity and affirmation – there’s Rick Astley on the Pyramid (and playing Smiths covers with Blossoms earlier today), Sophie Ellis-Bextor on the Pyramid tomorrow, Spice Girl Melanie C whacking out the greatest hits later on on the Avalon stage. Lizzo’s set fits squarely in this bracket, and is in many ways well timed: Saturday afternoon at the festival can sometimes feel a little mortal, so what better time to be reminded of the importance of self-love, the US superstar’s metier?
Her set on the Pyramid stage exudes it, though it’s better when she shows rather than tells. Lizzo is a joyful performer, today with sea witch-green hair and (at first) a black and pink leather catsuit: like Taylor Swift, she embodies every second of her performance, wearing the emotions on her supremely expressive face and never letting a wink go un-winked. She’s surrounded by her fellow big grrrl dancers, all wearing green wigs and pink leotards, and to see them shimmying together, both in tight choreography yet also clearly spontaneously vibing off real-time joy, is life-affirming. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon once said that the beauty of live music is that “people pay money to see others believe in themselves”, and you truly believe, from this ebullient, kinetic performance, that everyone onstage does.
