As the sun set and a scatter of hot air balloons hovered in the sky above the Pyramid stage on Saturday night, Lizzo delivered her mission statement. “Tonight,” declared the American RnB sensation, “we’re gonna throw some ass!”
Dressed in a bright shiny pink boiler suit, her hair dyed green, the 35-year-old star was having the time of her life, jiggling, shimmying and twerking her way through a joyous hour of feel-good bangers that celebrate women in general, and “big girls” in particular. Attending a Lizzo concert almost feels like going to therapy – but a crazy, fun kind in which thousands of people are singing to their neighbour, as per her instructions, “you’re special”, after the name of one of her hits, or engaging in an interlude of “bad bitch meditation”.
It is astounding that Lizzo didn’t become a star until the age of 30. Her first hit, Truth Hurts, was actually a sleeper – released in 2017. By that point she had already released two albums and even collaborated with Prince on his 2014 album ‘Plectrumelectrum’ with the song “BoyTrouble”. And yet it took until 2019 for Truth Hurts to chart, after belatedly going viral on TikTok. She played on the Glastonbury’s smaller West Holts stage that summer, and in the few years since has become such a huge star that at Worthy Farm on Saturday night – with those hits, that voice and that stage presence – it felt frankly baffling that she wasn’t headlining the festival.
