As the ever-so-feared torrential rainstorm took over the grounds of Hyde Park, the heatwave-induced dried grass turned into muddy puddles. After fifteen minutes of utter chaos, all the merchandise stands spread across the festival site found themselves with sold-out items that people could cover themselves with.
Closing the second week of grandiosely curated BST entertainment, the Sunday crowd geared up for an outstanding line-up of female artists. Supporting the second Sabrina Carpenter day, as the sky almost cleared out and the air felt lighter, Olivia Dean appeared on the Great Oak Stage, hopeful with every note that the huge approaching glooming cloud would not turn into another tropical rainfall.
Dodging the bullet, Dean started with her latest single, ‘Nice To Each Other,’ and people started running towards her angelic voice. Following with ‘Ok Love You Bye,’ the crowd began moving, dancing, as her alluring feminine energy put us all collectively under a spell. With the liberating ‘Be My Own Boyfriend,’ you could feel everyone ejected from false hopes and unfulfilled promises.
With her upcoming album, ‘the art of loving’ due to be released on September 26th, Olivia Dean performed an unreleased track, ‘lady lady!’ as a teaser of what we can be excited for in a couple of months. As a day-one fan, amongst all the soul-enriching hits, it was ‘Echo’ and ‘The Hardest Part’ that stood out. For the second half of the audience, ‘It Isn’t Perfect But It Might Be,’ from the Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy score, embraced the imperfect moments and relived the character’s messy charm.
Though the most powerful moment of the show was Olivia Dean’s touching performance of ‘Carmen,‘ from her debut album ‘Messy,’ she introduced it by saying: “This song is dedicated to my grandmother. She came to this country when she was 18 years old… She’d never been on a plane… I am a product of her bravery. Any immigrant, anyone who’s brave enough to do something for the people who come after them. This is for you.” Friends were clunched in a hug, singing the profound lyrics with tears streaming down their faces.
Initially masmerised by her voice back in 2018 on her collaboration with Rejjie Snow, ‘Hello?’ and this year’s Coachella set, the expectations were high for the Atlanta singer/songwriter Clairo. Hitting the Great Oak Stage for Night Two, the effortlessly cool Claio appeared in a girlie black dress and served exactly like anticipated.
Wowing the world with her latest album, ‘Charm,’ Clairo is a pioneer in the indie-pop scene, where her laid-back, sweet demeanor played a huge role in her appeal at BST. The indie-pop songstress, accompanied by a full band that included flute, saxophone, organs, and drums, fulfilled core memories for not just me in the audience. Standout performances included the very enticing, ‘Sexy To Someone,’ ‘Juna,’ ‘Bags,’ and ‘Sofia’ from her 2019 debut, ‘Immunity.’
On top of that, breaking the set, Clairo played the viral track, ‘Steeeam,‘ released by her band Shelly with the hauntingly seductive lyrics, “touch me the right way baby, and I’ll do it again.”
As the SC troops reassembled after an hour’s break, it was time to experience a top-tier level of pure girlhood. Sabrina Carpenters hit the Great Oak Stage for the second time, as she sold out the festival twice. As she shared, it is an exponential difference from her previous BST appearance, when she performed for only 5,000 people, compared to the endless crowds of 65,000 twice.
With the 1950s style television advertisements sharing the breaking news, Sabrina Carpenter announced, “It’s 10 pm, do you know where your girlfriend is?” with which she blessed the stage rocking a sparkling white one-piece with her name emblazoned in pink, at the top of the SC dazzled construction.
Showing off her new tight curl look, Carpenter opened with the unstoppable bops, ‘Busy Woman,’ ‘Taste‘ and ‘Good Graces.’ In her latest single, ‘Manchild,’ the female part of the crowd relished in screaming, “stupid, slow, useless.” Stripping things down, she sat down on the edge of the stage to deliver an acoustic version of the ‘Sharpest Tool.’
After the hit-packed half of the show, Carpenter asked us to howl, just to see if we would, and the entire audience obeyed, of course, as it eloquently launched into the surprise guest of Simon Le Bon and John Taylor from Duran Duran to sing ‘Hungry Like The Wolf.’ Surprisingly, even the younger attendees knew the song word for word and judged it as a great pairing.
The first and only outfit change came for ‘Nonsense,’ from the 2022 album, ’emails i can’t send.’ Switching to a sultry pink glittery dress with a matching bra, she took everyone’s breath away with her vocal perfection on ‘Couldn’t Make It Harder.’ For the fan favorite, ‘Juno,’ it is a tradition in Carpenter’s shows to find some special guests in the crowd; for BST Night Two, it was actress Ayo Edebiri and Clairo, who hilariously started dancing Charli XCX’s Apple Dance to which Carpenter started singing along and said: “So it’s close, but it’s just a different show.”
Following the mega-hit, ‘Please, Please, Please,’ Carpenter was lifted into the air on a crane-operated platform to come closer to other parts of the audience while singing the bittersweet, ‘Don’t Smile.’
As the show approached the climactic finale, Sabrina Carpenter proposed holding an espresso martini. “I know you guys like tea, but we could try espresso, maybe? The louder you scream, the more I drink,” and the crowd understandably yelped. The firework-backed ‘Espresso’ closed an exemplary night of pop music, Sabrina Carpenter’s witty charm and the underlying raunchy, seductive honesty of being a woman.
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Words: Karolina Kramplova
Photographer: Isha Shah, Jordan Hughes,