Dua Lipa hits all the right notes at Glastonbury

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By Mark Savage, Music Correspondent • Annabel Rackham, Entertainment reporter

Getty Images Dua Lipa gives the crowd a look

Dua Lipa did not come to mess around.

The pop star stormed through her first ever headline slot at Glastonbury with an ambitious and dynamic performance that was stacked with smashes from beginning to end.

She took to the Pyramid Stage shortly after 10pm, opening with a flawless run of five songs: Training Season, One Kiss, Illusion, Break My Heart and Levitating.

Each one had the breathless choreography of an award show performance – and the pace didn’t let up all night.

She played 15 top 40 hits, including Don’t Start Now, Physical and New Rules, as well as her collaborations with Elton John (Cold Heart) and Mark Ronson (Electricity).

Strangely, however, she chose not to play her Barbie smash Dance The Night, which was consigned to a video interlude during one of the star’s five costume changes.

Her raspy mezzo-soprano cut through the warm Somerset night, particularly on the dramatic ballad Happy For You, and the purring, sensuous Houdini, which closed her set.

The 28-year-old even paid tribute to Shakespear’s Sister, one of Glastonbury’s first ever female headliners in 1992, wearing a t-shirt bearing the cover of their album Hormonally Yours.

On stage, she repeatedly talked about how she had manifested this very moment, having dreamt of headlining Glastonbury before she even recorded her first album.

“I’ve written this moment down and wished for it and dreamt it and worked so hard,” she told the crowd.

She recalled one of her first gigs, playing to 10 people who “only came because we offered them free drinks” – and seemed overawed by how much that audience had grown.

Almost 100,000 people watched the set, with fans stretching all the way back to Rowmead, an area that used to be reserved for campers, but which has been opened up in 2024 to allow bigger crowds to the Pyramid Stage.

“It’s a lot, innit? A lot to take in,” Lipa said.

“Little me would just be beside herself right now.”

It was a tiny moment of vulnerability in an armour-plated set. No song was left unpolished, no vocal left unharmonised, no hair left untossed. Dua hit every mark with the precision of someone who’d been building towards this moment for years.

But if that makes it sound clinical and sterile, it wasn’t the case.

Take, for example, the moment she rushed down to the barriers to get the crowd singing along to her early hit Be The One.

It wasn’t entirely spontaneous – in fact it riffed on a moment she pulled off at her last Glastonbury performance in 2017 – but the joy on the star’s face as she climbed the fences and sang face to face with her fans was genuine.

Getty Images Dua Lipa embracing Kevin Parker

Shortly afterwards, she brought out Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker – a collaborator on her new album Radical Optimism – to sing their song The Less I Know The Better.

Freed from the iron grip of choreography, she simply vibed out with him on stage, giving a glimpse of the person behind the tightly-controlled public persona.

If there was a criticism, it was that these moments were too few and far between.

The show often felt staged for television as much as the festival audience, and the exacting damce routines - while undoubtedly impressive - didn’t allow for much spontaneity

New Rules mash-up

Before the show, Lipa said her goal was to turn Glastonbury “into a nightclub” and, to keep that promise, all the songs were given a sonic overhaul. She constantly added sounds from the 90s rave scene and beefed up her beats with trunk-rumbling sub bass.

Her breakout hit, New Rules, was even combined with the festival staple Glue, by Northern Irish dance act Bicep

Getty Images Dua Lipa performs on a second, smaller stage

Even the outfits were planned to complement the club theme, with Dua’s fashion choices blending in with (rather than standing out from) those of her dancers - from a chunky studded belt, to red-and-black flamed hotpants.

Notably, she also wore flat shoes to facilitate the dancing - enhancing the feeling that we were joining her on a night out, rather than watching an untouchable pop icon.

With fireworks and confetti throughout the set, it felt like she’d set out to stake her claim on Glastonbury immortality. And, watching from the front row, she more than succeeded.

This other acts at the top of this weekend’s bill – including five-time headliners Coldplay – have their work cut out to match her ambition.