Charli XCX opens Glastonbury’s Other Stage with a pink, streamer-filled celebration

Surrounded by (deep breath) several dozen bouquets of pink roses, various mirrored platforms, four dancing inflatable men with mohawks, enough pink confetti to fill a medium-sized house, and a 90s-as-hell bubblegum logo, it’s fair to say that Charli XCX’s set - opening up The Other Stage for the weekend - isn’t a particularly understated affair. That’s what makes her a total legend, mind, and shaking a dozy field of revellers free of their hangovers, it’s a set that’s overblown, brilliant, and filled with its fair share of chaos.

The confetti streamers are swept the wrong way by the wind, and accidentally dress up the fish topping the stage in Charli’s unofficial uniform; one of the bendy men comes a-cropper and takes a lie down during a decent chunk of ‘Vroom Vroom’. Charli, as you’d imagine, is delighted by it all. “Lads, lads, lads!” she chants, leading a ‘3am’ sea of waving arms, at barely past midday. “Who’s getting fucked up?!” she asks later on. “Me too! See you at Shangri-La!”

It’s a show mainly for the noughties-nodding bangers from her recent mixtape ‘Number 1 Angel’, but Charli also squeezes in a hugely bassed-up version of ‘Break the Rules’ along the way, as well as an unhinged version of ‘Fancy’. An artist that’s liable to switch things up dramatically - veering from the punk-edged ‘Sucker’ straight to the blooping, champagne-popping direction of her mixtape, there’s one thing that holds it all together. Today kicks off with the Charli XCX show; yet more proof that she’s one of the funnest pop stars going.