Looking resplendent in a sea-green dress and iridescent fairy wings, SZA rolls her shoulders back and exhales, as though she’s finally about to speak after an hour of being on the Pyramid Stage. Instead, we are met with a small, bashful smile. For a minute, she is a shy half-presence, averting her gaze from the spotlight. Yet this blink-and-you-miss-it moment is revealing in a way that it shouldn’t have to be: a sign of palpable nerves, perhaps accentuated by the outside noise surrounding this very performance.
When the avant-garde R&B artist (born Solána Imani Rowe) was confirmed as a Glastonbury headliner earlier this year – the first Black woman to top the bill since Beyoncé in 2011 – the announcement was met with undue criticism across social media. There is certainly an argument to be made that much of her success is concentrated in the US, given that she broke stateside chart records aplenty with landmark 2022 album ‘SOS’. Yet four sold-out O2 Arena shows last summer, plus a Wireless headline slot the year prior, would suggest she has also made a firm commercial impact in the UK. Crucially, her streaming stats show that she has an overwhelmingly Gen Z audience – the same followers who may be largely priced out of attendance at an event like this.
Regardless of how high the stakes may be, it’s obvious that SZA has it in her to give it everything: choreography is executed with intensity and a striking dynamism; she attacks ad-libs with vigour (‘Prom’, ‘Drew Barrymore’), showing off a lived-in and soulful vocal. When she broke through with 2017’s ‘Ctrl’ LP, SZA was a shy and infrequent performer, cancelling dates on a whim while staying glued conscientiously to the idea of early retirement. Tonight (June 30), she instead appears sparky and charismatic, whether she’s dancing with katana swords during ‘Kill Bill’ or launching into the splits before ‘Low’.
The agitated, rock-influenced ‘F2F’ comes off as a riot of electro twitches, grunge guitar and husky murmurs. ‘Kiss Me More’ is emboldened by a funky Prince interpolation, before the progressive Pride flag flashes in the corner of the screens during a moving ‘Normal Girl’. The visuals jump eras and aesthetics (from futurist robots to rainforest stage decorations and astrology motifs) work as a canny distraction when SZA repeatedly comes up against mic and reverb issues.
As disjointed as this show occasionally is, though, it’s hypnotic and potent. The turnout is noticeably small for a headliner, but the extra space on the ground allows young women to share smiles of recognition and understanding with strangers while singing along to songs centred on overcoming toxic romances and self-esteem battles. “This is for my day ones only,” SZA exclaims as she introduces closer ‘20 Something’ to screams from the front section of the crowd. In the moment, their unwavering devotion is clearly the only response that matters.
SZA’s Glastonbury setlist was:
‘PSA’
‘Love Galore’
‘Broken Clocks’
‘All The Stars’
‘Prom’
‘Garden (Say It Like Dat)’
‘Drew Barrymore’
‘F2F’
‘Forgiveless’
‘Ghost In The Machine’
‘Blind’
‘Shirt’
‘Kiss Me More’
‘I Hate U’
‘Snooze’
‘Kill Bill’
‘Low’
‘Supermodel’
‘Special’
‘Open Arms’
‘Nobody Gets Me’
‘Normal Girl’
‘Saturn’
‘Rich Baby Daddy’
‘The Weekend’
‘Good Days’
’20 Something’