Dua Lipa ‘born to do’ Glastonbury – festival organiser Emily Eavis

Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis said pop star Dua Lipa was “born” to headline the music festival on Friday.

The 28-year-old British-Albanian singer is expected to treat revellers to a selection of her hit songs, including Houdini and Training Season from her third studio album, Radical Optimism, released earlier this year.

Eavis told BBC Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show that there would be “no big surprises” at this year’s event, but did point to Coldplay’s Saturday headline slot being a “huge moment”.

She added: “I’m looking forward to Dua Lipa tonight, you know, I feel like she’s really born to do this.

“She’s a proper festivalgoer, she comes every year and… you can really tell whether someone really gets the festival and loves it.”

Dua Lipa, who took home the Brit Award for best pop act in March, is headlining the British festival for the first time when she takes to the stage in Somerset on Friday evening.

This year’s event also sees American R&B singer SZA headlining on Sunday, while country star Shania Twain will play the coveted Legends slot.

Earlier Eavis defended the line-up for the festival amid criticism of there being a lack of rock bands, telling the PA news agency: “I think the line-up reflects what’s happening in the music world at the moment – there aren’t a lot of new rock acts to choose from, if I’m honest.

“Hopefully that will emerge again, my heyday was 1995 with Pulp and Oasis and Radiohead… and that was great, but music changes all the time and right now this is where we’re at.

“Every year, we’ve been criticised for being too rock, too grime, too hip hop, too pop… it’s just part of our year.

“Generally it’s not from the public… everybody’s really happy and excited to be here.”

This year’s festival is taking place in the week before the General Election, which Eavis acknowledged they have “never had”.

“I feel a bit like we’ve stepped out of the election, even though it’s next week,” she said.

“We were working on having voter registration booths, but then the day moved.

“It’s a big one for us, we’ve never had a pre-election festival.”

Glastonbury have also decided it will not be broadcasting the Euro 2024 football tournament, with England set to face Slovakia in the last 16 at 5pm on Sunday.

Eavis said the festival set up a screen to watch fixtures during the World Cup tournament in 1998, but times have changed.

“We used to have a screen here as no-one had any means of finding out what even the result was because we were so cut off from the outside,” she said.

“Now obviously, everyone’s connected and I think, you know, it’s a music festival.

“I’m sure if people want to see it enough they can check for results or whatever on their phones.

“But hopefully I’m encouraging people to put their phones away and and forget about the outside world.”

Music fans at Glastonbury enjoying Friday’s line-up could be met with the “occasional light shower” but the day will mainly be “dry and bright”, according to a Met Office spokeswoman.

Nicola Maxey told PA: “Although there is a chance of an occasional light shower today at Glastonbury, it will be a mainly dry and bright day with sunny spells, and the chance of some late evening sunshine for festival goers.

“Tomorrow will mostly be another dry and bright day, a little warmer than Friday, but becoming cloudier through the evening with the chance of some light drizzle later on.

“The drizzle should clear as we go through Sunday morning, making way for another dry day with plenty of sunshine.

“Whilst a weather front could bring some rainfall to the festival site for a period on Monday, Tuesday is looking like another dry day.”

Temperatures are expected to reach high teens to low 20s Celsius over the festival weekend.

Squeeze will open the Pyramid Stage on Friday at midday, followed by rising star Olivia Dean, K-pop group Seventeen and singer Paul Heaton.

Dean, 25, who won the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award in 2023, performed on the The Lonely Hearts Club stage at the festival last year, but this will be her first time playing on the main stage.

LCD Soundsystem will then take to the stage at 7.45pm, ahead of Dua Lipa’s set.

The American rock band, whose hits include Dance Yrself Clean and All My Friends, last played Glastonbury in 2016 where they performed on the Other Stage.

Thursday’s festivities included a tribute to the late DJ Annie Nightingale, the first female presenter on BBC Radio 1, who died in January at the age of 83.

The special event took place across two stages at the festival and included a daytime celebration on The Glade stage, featuring King Of The Beats and Paper Dragon, before it moved to the BBC Music Introducing stage for the evening.

Elsewhere, and just days after the birth of his fourth child, Joe Wicks led a fitness session and set his sights on taking his workouts to the Pyramid Stage.

He told the PA news agency that he had initially planned to take his wife Rosie with him to the festival, but said they made a last-minute change after the birth of his son Dusty.

Wicks returned to the Park Stage at 10am, to put more festivalgoers through their paces in front of early risers.

Published: 28/06/2024 by Radio NewsHub