Photo: WENN
Lily Allen played a heavily-talked about set at Glastonbury festival this evening (27 June, 2014), living up to the controversial bar she set herself earlier this week.
Returning to the festival for the first time in five years, Allen braved the thunderstorms that plagued the worthy farm site to bring a performance packed full of hits from across her three albums to date - to a sun-soaked Worthy Farm.
Taking to The Pyramid Stage 30 minutes late due to adverse weather conditions, the self proclaimed ’Sheezus' opened with her 2006 single 'LDN', proving her worth as an alternative pop superstar, effortlessly whipping up the crowd with an infectious sense of optimism.
"Last time I played here was about five years ago, and it was the night I got together with my actual husband, who is now here with my two babies” proclaimed the star proudly, before firing into the trap-based intensity of ‘Sheezus’ the title track from her latest number one album.
Comeback single ‘Hard Out Here’ and breakthrough track ‘Smile’ also resonated well with the damp audience, the latter given a drum and bass reworking to get The Pyramid Stage crowd suitably amped up.
Providing a sense of disorder she had promised from the performance earlier this week, Allen introduced ‘Fuck You’ with a dedication to president of the FA Sebb Blatter by saying "This song is dedicated to the most annoyingly corrupt person in the world”, a move which prompted huge cheers across the field.
The rest of her banter also possessed that cutting sense of approachable charm, whether she was asking "Is my camel-toe really prominent” or audibly adjusting a wedgie on stage, the audience seemed to celebrate her candidness, a point perfectly illustrated through the positive reception to tracks like ‘The Fear’, with the set as a whole proving that Allen herself is worthy of the hype that surrounds her.
Although some moments were perhaps unnecessary in an otherwise upbeat festival set, with renditions of Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ and the unofficial world cup song ‘Bass Like Home’ prompting a somewhat bemused reaction, Allen ended her set on a high with a crowd-accompanied performance of ‘Not Fair’, leaving everyone in high spirits for upcoming sets from Elbow and Arcade Fire.
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