Within about five minutes Kylie has declared herself speechless, brought out a Klaus Nomi lookalike and is already on to her second costume change – from silky white trousers to a ritzy red dress.
Judging from the hearty roar we just heard in the Guardian Glasto office, Kylie has emerged on the Pyramid stage.
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Octavian reviewed
In previous years, grime and UK rap has often been confined to a particular corner of Glastonbury. This year, it’s joyful (and pretty tiring on the legs) to discover that there’s a huge variety of rap artists spread across the whole site. There’s scarcely a stage that hasn’t seen a moshpit this weekend – yesterday Slowthai was demanding his crowd create the biggest of the festival at West Holts, and today Octavian was insisting that his at John Peel had to be even bigger. But perhaps unlike other rappers on the bill, Octavian’s dreamlike music isn’t always the most obviously mosh-able.
Drenched in acid trip-emulating cartoon visuals and delivering elegiac auto-tuned vocals over skippy beats, Octavian’s mid-afternoon set had a “heartbroken in the rave” vibe. At one point, he announced that he broke up with his girlfriend last week, and got everyone in the crowd who’s going through a break-up to give a mournful cheer. His vocals shone on sad bangers from his most recent mixtape, Endorphins, but the true highlights of the set were his off-kilter breakthrough hit Party Here (including his lithe, wiry footwork) and the boisterous Skepta-featuring single Bet – a song so infectious that even the security staff were spotted skanking.
Self Esteem reviewed
Freed from the shackles of indie also-rans Slow Club, Rebecca Taylor is now known as Self Esteem, and specialises in emotionally lacerating DIY pop. If in her previous life she was in the shadows, here she’s gloriously front and centre, rolling through tight choreography with her two backing singers while wearing a sequinned bra and an oversized lilac suit.
Steady I Stand, like most of the songs on debut Compliments Please, starts small before morphing into an anthemic chorus skyrocketed by Taylor’s swollen vocals. Girl Crush, meanwhile, is a 60s girl-group bop updated for 2019 complete with choreographed handclaps, while the urgent In Time (“I’m going to get drunk and slag you off then go home and eat my feelings”) morphs hip-hop’s booming beats into something endearingly lo-fi.
A sweaty set ends with The Best, a throbbing electro stomper revolving around the chorus: “I did the best that I could babe.” You did more than that, if anything.
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