Harry Styles’ Meltdown at the Southbank Centre begins next week, the pop superstar’s perhaps unlikely curatorship of this most serious of music festivals — no jumpsuits or smiling usually permitted. Yet, as is clear from the line-up, Styles has eclectic musical tastes, and the festival openers, Warpaint, have actually played with him before.
“He took us on tour in South-east Asia in 2018,” remembers guitarist/vocalist Emily Kokal. “It was a pleasant surprise to meet him, he was cool. We hung out with him and his band, did some karaoke. I didn’t really know anything about him, he just seemed to be doing things his own way.” But weren’t you playing to his pop crowd? “His pop crowd was awesome,” interjects Jenny Lee Lindberg, bassist/vocalist. “It was lots of young girlies. It was cool.”
