Olivia Rodrigo welcomed The Cure frontman Robert Smith onto the Pyramid Stage as she wrapped up a politically charged Glastonbury Festival on Sunday night.
The “deja vu” singer obliged with all the fan favorites from her last two albums, Sour and Guts, including “good 4 u,” “jealousy, jealousy” and “traitor.”
“Holy fucking shit,” the U.S. star said from the fest’s iconic essential stage, where 1000’s stood to see her perform. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many individuals in my life.”
She brought out Smith — “the best songwriter to come back out of England” — nearly midway into the set. The pair played “Friday I’m in Love” and “Just Like Heaven” together.
A sweet moment occurred when Rodrigo dedicated the tune “so american” to Brit boyfriend and actor Louis Partridge, who was watching from backstage. “I fucking love England,” she began. “I really like the culture. I really like how no person judges you for having a pint at noon. I really like English sweets — I’ve had three sticky toffee puddings since I arrived.”
“I also really love English boys,” she continued. “I wrote this next song after I was falling in love with this boy from London and as we were attending to know one another, we were discovering all of those cross-cultural differences. I might make fun of him for eating a jacket potato with beans within it. He would make fun of me for pronouncing things very American — like Glaston-berry — so I took all of our little inside jokes and I made a song on that.”
The annual event, which kicked off Wednesday with a 250,000-plus-person attendance, is the crowning jewel of music festivals. Lorde made a surprise appearance on Friday as her latest album Virgin was born, and Charli xcx thrilled Brat fans Saturday night. But this 12 months, things often got political onstage.
Festival organizers released an announcement Sunday after rap duo Bob Vylan chanted “death to the IDF” (the Israel Defense Forces) during their set on the West Holts stage on Saturday.
“Their chants very much crossed a line, and we’re urgently reminding everyone involved within the production of the festival that there is no such thing as a place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech, or incitement to violence,” wrote Emily Eavis, daughter of Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis.
Elsewhere, Irish rap trio Kneecap also took to the stage to voice their pro-Palestine views and used the platform to criticize the U.K. and U.S. governments, in addition to the U.S. media.
The band, the themes of Wealthy Peppiatt’s print-the-legend biopic Kneecap, also thanked the Eavis family for allowing them to play despite pushback from U.K. politicians, including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. “An enormous thanks to the Eavis family,” they said. “The pressure that that family was under and so they stood strong. Fair play to them.”
In keeping with The 1975’s Matty Healy (the band was the primary to headline Friday night), viewers watching the BBC’s live Glastonbury coverage at home may need been “upset” by the “lack of politics on this show.”
He said Friday: “I would like you to realize it’s a conscious decision. … We don’t want our legacy to be politics; we would like our [message] to be love and friendship.” Shortly after, screens flanking the band as they played “Love It If We Made It” displayed, amongst others, clips of KKK rituals, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, the war in Gaza, Kanye West, police brutality within the U.S., 9/11 and London’s Grenfell Tower burning down.