BILLIE Eilish expressed her dismay about a “dark day for women in the United States” during her historic set on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival last night.
Eilish, 20, whose performance saw her become the festival’s youngest-ever solo headliner, addressed the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn the Roe vs Wade ruling that has protected women’s right to an abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years.
The move is likely to lead to abortion bans in around half of states, including some with “trigger laws” that stopped performing them after yesterday’s Supreme Court verdict.
Her comments came before she performed ‘Your Power’, a song about its “concept” and the consequences of its abuse.
The global superstar was joined on stage by her “brother and best friend” Finneas O’Connell, her co-writer and co-producer who provides instrumental backing to her gigs, and drummer Andrew Marshall.
She opened her set with ‘Bury A Friend’, a highlight from her set on The Other Stage in 2019 that took on a new life under the Pyramid’s intricate lighting and pyrotechnics.
While Finneas remained on the stage’s upper level, a typically energetic Eilish – clad in a black-and-white graphic outfit with striped arm-warmers – ran and danced across the vast space available to her.
She spoke to the crowd directly on only a handful of occasions, the first after ‘Therefore I Am’, a single from her second UK number one album Happier Than Ever.
“There are so many of you, Jesus f***!”, she exclaimed. “I love you guys so much. Are you ready to have some fun?”.
The enormous Worthy Farm gathering chanted her name and followed her every command, screaming midway through ‘You Should See Me in a Crown’ and falling and bouncing during ‘Oxytocin’.
Eilish spoke about “protecting the planet and our people” before singing ‘Everything I Wanted’, and later sang about the fame that has engulfed her since her meteoric rise as a teenager in vulnerable synth track ‘Getting Older’ (“The things that I enjoyed just keep me employed now”).
Snippets of tracks Eilish released as a teenager, including ‘Ocean Eyes’ and ‘Bellyache’, were warmly received ahead of delicate piano ballad ‘When The Party's Over’.
The penultimate song from her 90-minute set was 2019 smash-hit ‘Bad Guy’, the inimitable dance-pop highlight from her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Her set was brought to an epic conclusion as the crowd belted the anthemic ending of ‘Happier Than Ever’ beneath fireworks launched from the stage.
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