SZA’s striking set failed to set up Glastonbury

After the lean and efficient Dua Lipa and Coldplay, Sunday night’s Glastonbury headliners have a tough act to follow.

After the rumored appearance of pop queen Madonna fell through, the slot finally went to US R&B star SZA.

One of the most streamed artists in the world, he is a passionate and confident performer whose complex and complex take on modern relationships has made him a favorite with millennials.

But his spirit couldn’t cause magic in the Pyramid Stage.

The star drew the smallest crowd I’ve seen for a Glastonbury headliner, in more than 20 years of coming to the festival.

It didn’t help that, at least for the first half hour, his microphone was distorted and muffled – a problem for an artist whose appeal lies in the precision of lyrics and the beauty of jazz vocals.

The 33-year-old also committed the festival sin of not addressing the crowd. His only interaction in the first act of the show was to ask if there were any fans of his “one day”.

“You know I need you, right?” she said, perhaps admitting that this is not her natural audience.

While he had his biggest hit – the darkly comic murder fantasy Kill Bill (1.9 billion Spotify streams) – people were already away to watch sets from The National, James Blake and London Grammar elsewhere on the site.

That’s not to say SZA put on a bad performance, or that the thousands who stayed until the end of the set were disappointed.

He has a spectacular vocal command, projecting behind the scenes without sacrificing intimacy.

Midway through the set, he played Nobody Gets Me – a devastating ballad about his struggle to let go after breaking up with his fiance. It was by some distance the most vulnerable, moving performance I saw from a Pyramid Stage headliner all weekend.

Young fans in the audience clasped their hands on their chests and mouthed together silently.

Other highlights include F2F’s brittle, rock-infused and 80s-infused pop smash Kiss Me More – which he joined Prince’s Kiss.

It’s a visual feast, too, divided into three distinct parts that depict the process of dealing with heartbreak.

He started in a gloomy cave, a metaphorical fortress of solitude, surrounded by stalactites and performing Drew Barrymore while perched on a giant ant.

For the second part, called “robot world”, he struggles with conflicting emotions, together with his ex and wants to hurt him, in songs like Snooze, Kill Bill and I Hate U.

The final segment is entitled “Beginning”. SZA, sprouted wings, climbed a tree, and played some of her more independent, feel-good songs – including Saturn (about escaping from the earth for a better life) and self-explanatory Good Days.

His last song was 20 Something, a declaration of solidarity for others who are going through the turmoil of the third decade and he came down from the complex set and sang with the fans in the front row.

“Glastonbury, I’m really nervous today,” he said. “I am so grateful. You have my deepest love and my deepest respect. God bless you and I hope you get home safely.”

With sinuous choreography and a compelling stage presence, SZA’s set is a grand event in the wrong place – a problem that has repeatedly blighted Glastonbury this year.

Beloved acts like Sugababes, Fred Again and Avril Lavigne were booked into an area too small to handle the fans; while the Pyramid Stage struggled to attract enough numbers to convince, a muscular set by PJ Harvey and Janelle Monae.

In the end, it’s a shame that the performance, like SZA’s, will go down in history for the wrong reasons.

After the set, the singer posted a message that appeared to acknowledge the negative response.

“The courage it takes to live in public is incredible,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“So everybody’s doing (expletive).”

• PSA
• Love Galore
• Broken Hour
• All Stars
• Prom
• Garden (Say It Like Dat)
• Drew Barrymore
• F2F
• do not forgive
• Ghost in the Machine
• blind
• shirts
• Kiss Me More
• I Hate U
• Suspend
• Kill Bill
• less
• Supermodel / Special
• Open Arms
• Nobody Asks Me
• Normal Girl
• Saturn
• Rich Baby Daddy (Drake cover)
• The weekend
• Good day
• 20 Something

Elsewhere on Sunday, Shania Twain played in the coveted Legend slot, delivering big hits like Don’t Be Impressed and Human! I Feel Like A Woman! while expressing disbelief at the size of his audience.

“I find moments like this life-changing and I mean that very sincerely,” she said, breaking down in tears again at the end of the set.

On another stage, Avril Lavigne is also famouscausing massive traffic jams as fans flocked to hear era-defining pop-punk hits like Complicated and Sk8r Boi.

He started with the brilliantly snotty Boyfriend, and the cartoonish sneer was still plastered across his face for the next hour.

“I can’t believe it took me 22 years to play Glastonbury,” he said. “It’s time”.

Janelle Monae played a tight, funky set on the Pyramid Stage – going through several costume changes, including a replica Michael Jackson suit.

Lithe and limber, she celebrates sexual freedom in songs like Pink, Yoga, Lipstick Lover and Make Me Feel, while devoting herself to the queer community, in the final hours of Pride month.

Later, he expanded his devotion to other marginalized and persecuted groups around the world.

“I am proud to stand with you as you stand against genocide,” he said. “When you fight against the criminalization of the homeless. As (politicians) bring legislation to (regulate) our bodies.

He went on to call for an end to violence in Palestine, Sudan and Congo – while also calling out anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

“These are our people. So when we see injustice, we know,” she said.

It was a powerful moment, better said than any protest on stage this weekend.

He was joined on stage by Nigerian star Burna Boy, in a party atmosphere as he raced through Afro-fusion hits like Sittin’ On Top Of The World, Ye and Last Last.

Flirting with the audience throughout, he finally removed the top and invited others to follow suit. If it had been warmer, they probably should have.

The headline set came from the French dance maestros Justice on the West Holts stage and the indie-pop group London Grammar, which attracted a huge crowd to the hillside Park Stage, despite singer Hannah Reid’s misgivings about being scheduled against SZA.

But the biggest headliner, in terms of audience size, was US indie band The National, who engulfed The Other Stage with epic guitars, rich horns, and Matt Berninger’s emotive confessional lyrics.

From the intimate Light Years, to the haunting Abel, his grown-up voice and powerful delivery brought an uneventful Sunday to a close, as Glastonbury prepared to close up shop for another year.

The festival will return in 2025, Emily Eavis has confirmed, before taking a fallow year in 2026.