Glastonbury gears up for Dua Lipa’s headline set

After two days of build-up, Glastonbury Festival kicks into gear on Friday with the first full day of music on the main stages.

Squeeze open the Pyramid Stage at midday, with other acts on the line-up including Idles, Jamie xx, LCD Soundsystem, PJ Harvey, Fontaines DC and Anne-Marie.

Pop star Dua Lipa is the opening night headliner, playing disco-pop anthems like New Rules, Don’t Start Now, One Kiss, Levitating and Houdini.

“I’ve got to figure out a way to make 150,000 people feel like they’re in a small little nightclub,” she told the BBC earlier this year.

“That’s the goal, and if there’s one place to do it, it’s gotta be Glasto.”

The star has been rehearsing her set in Birmingham all week, following warm-up shows earlier this month in Croatia, Germany and France.

The rehearsals were briefly interrupted by a TikTok influencer who broke in and tried to film the star, according to The Sun. However, they were intercepted before they made it into the studio.

Genuine behind-the-scenes footage was posted last month by Lipa’s friend and fashion designer Guiliano Calza, who shared a snippet of her athletic dance breakdown during Houdini on Instagram.

The show will also include “incredible surprises and some unexpected moments”, said Lipa’s record label boss, Max Lousada.

“She’s just going to bring the party to Friday night,” he told Variety magazine.

For the first time ever, the star’s Glastonbury performance will be broadcast outside the UK, via a livestream on BBC.com.

Other headliners across the weekend include Coldplay, SZA and country star Shania Twain, who says she wants to “ride a horse to the stage” when she plays on Sunday.

However, festival organiser Emily Eavis said she’d previously turned down that exact request.

“It’s unfair on the horse because it’s so busy,” she said, without confirming who had demanded an equine entrance.

Glastonbury is the UK’s biggest festival, with more than 100 stages catering to 200,000 fans over the course of the weekend.

Early birds were treated to a spectacular drone display on Wednesday night, while Thursday saw music begin on the outer stages – with DJ sets by The Orb, MJ Cole, Kurupt FM and Skream.

The festival’s co-founder, Sir Michael Eavis, also made an appearance on The Park Stage, singing covers of Frank Sinatra’s My Way and Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds.

The 88-year-old, who performed from a wheelchair, received a warm reception from the crowd, who chanted “we love you Michael” between songs.

“Thank you very much,” he responded. “That’s fantastic, thank you.”

As well as music, ticketholders can enjoy poetry, comedy, circus acts, and even pottery throwing.

Health guru Joe Wicks will open The Park Stage at 10am with an early morning work-out; while BBC Radio 3 presenter Georgia Mann will ease festival-goers into the day with a classical DJ set in the Crow’s Nest at 11am.

“I’m not sure what to expect,” she said.

“I’m thinking possibly it’ll be sleep deprived campers emerging from their tents, confused to discover me with my classical set – but I’m also anticipating people being a pretty upbeat mood.”

She’s kicking off with Max Richter’s “life-affirming” reworking of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and culminating in Stravinsky’s pulse-quickening The Firebird.

“We want to take classical music out of its box. And we want to show everybody that this music doesn’t need to be kept in a very solemn concert hall. It can absolutely stand on its own alongside reggae and rock and pop.”

At the festival’s second-biggest venue, The Other Stage, Brazilian environmentalist Chief Raoni will make a short speech at 11:20am, ahead of sets from Headie One, D-Block Europe and Bombay Bicycle Club.

Shortly after lunchtime, Seventeen will become the first K-pop band to play the Pyramid Stage, joining a bill that also includes Paul Heaton and LCD Soundsystem.

“There’s a great sense of responsibility,” said Seventeen band leader S Coups.

“We’ll keep coming back to that feeling and do our best to prepare, so that we can blow everybody away… Not just our fans, but every other member of the audience.”

Mercury Prize nominee Olivia Dean will also make her Pyramid Stage debut, fulfilling a lifelong ambition.

“It’s a stage that every musician dreams of walking out onto,” she told the BBC.

“I’m going to have a massive grin on my face. I might even cry.”

Performance artist Marina Abramovic will also hold a special “moment for peace” on the Pyramid Stage, shortly before PJ Harvey’s set at 6pm.

“We’ve been working on this for a while,” said organiser Emily Eavis, without giving away too many details.

“She’s going to speak from the Pyramid and then she’s got a plan… which I’ll leave to her to describe,” she told BBC 6 Music.

This year marks the first time in Glastonbury’s history that the festival will have two female performers at the top of the bill.

Eavis said achieving gender balance across the line-up was a “huge passion project” – adding that she was particularly proud of giving Dua Lipa her first UK headline slot.

“We’re creating a moment for her. And that’s really as exciting as anything.”

Lipa last played at Glastonbury in 2017, in an afternoon slot at the Woodsies tent. Four weeks later, she released the video for her breakout hit New Rules, and her career took off.

Since then, she’s become a seven-time Brit Award winner, largely thanks to her pandemic-era, kitchen disco sountracking Future Nostalgia album.

She was offered the headline slot last November, as she began the roll-out for her third album, Radical Optimism.

“When something like that comes along, you just don’t say no to it,” she told the BBC.

Headlining the festival had been on her bucket list since she recorded her first album in 2018, she added.

“It’s the greatest place on Earth. Just the sense of community and togetherness and having fun and taking care of one another. It’s just beautiful.”