GLASTONBURY Festival’s “home to fiery new music” lived up to its reputation this afternoon by hosting a stunning set from Griff, last year’s BRIT Rising Star Award winner.
The Hertfordshire 21-year-old, who uses a stage name because she believes Sarah Griffiths sounds “very corporate”, ran onto the John Peel Stage in front of a full house to a backdrop of dancing yellow lights.
Fresh from opening for Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia tour, she began her set with a confident performance of ‘One Foot in Front of the Other’ from last year’s almost entirely self-produced seven-track debut mixtape of the same name.
She then played through a series of highlights from the mixtape and standalone singles, with her talents as a multi-instrumentalist shown in ‘Walk’ and ‘Shade of Yellow’.
The standout performances were ‘Head on Fire’, a recently released duet with Norwegian singer-songwriter Sigrid, and ‘Black Hole’, which paired openly melodramatic heartbreak lyrics with bouncing synths and punchy drums to bring her set to its rapturous end.
Before singing ‘Head on Fire’ in Sigrid's absence, Griff told the audience: “Unfortunately, we can’t perform this on stage together, so I need you to sing it 10 times louder for me!”
The noise produced by the crowd singing along nearly made up for Sigrid not being there, although their contrasting vocals were missed in the song’s chorus and bridge.
Griff's euphoric single ‘One Night’, which encapsulates how things can “become 10 times heavier and louder at night”, was another highlight, particularly when she was joined on stage by a ‘mirror image’ of herself (complete with her trademark bubble ponytail) for a fleeting but beautifully choreographed dance routine.
Besides this, she was joined on stage only by a drummer and a keyboardist, but nothing was lost because of this minimalist set-up thanks to her captivating energy and assured stage presence.
She managed to draw noise and engagement from the audience in a way that felt natural, like when she encouraged people to join in with the catchy melodies of ‘1,000,000 x Better’ and ‘Shade of Yellow’ (“I know you guys have got voices and can sing, so I’m going to teach you another chorus”).
She and her band also masterfully interspersed Lorde’s 2013 hit ‘Royals’ into ‘Heart of Gold’, an understated number about “being a cautious lover” with someone who is “almost perfect”.
If her excellent mixtape and sublime Glastonbury debut are anything to go by, Griff’s next performance at Worthy Farm could well be on one of its bigger stages.
Griff’s John Peel Stage setlist at Glastonbury Festival 2022:
One Foot in Front of the Other
Forgive Myself
Walk
1,000,000 x Better
Heart of Gold
Head on Fire
One Night
Remembering My Dreams
Shade of Yellow
Black Hole
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