By the time she hits unlikely TikTok revival '
Party 4 U', the crowd is putty in her hands. '
Vroom Vroom' jolts us all back to attention, and '
Track 10' – performed under a haze of simulated rain and strobes – offers the kind of finale that feels like a curtain call from an alien pop opera. Her silhouette, drenched, flailing in time to the glitchy breakdown. She'll catch a cold like that.
But it isn't quite the end. One more song – and it's the one everyone is sort of surprised she still includes. In many ways, playing '
I Love It' remains the most 'BRAT' thing Charli can do, in all its 2012 glory. She roars it like it's hers again (which, let's be honest, it always kinda was). The field shouts every word. There's no irony here. No kitsch. Just euphoria. The track bleeds into a loop of synths, feedback and pummeling noise as the screens light up. It doesn't promise more music, or tease a new era. It reflects something more complicated – a realisation, maybe, or a reckoning. A discovery that 'BRAT' isn't a seasonal gimmick or an aesthetic phase. It's a lifeline. A mirror. A version of herself that she's no longer sure how to separate from the real thing.
Charli xcx didn't headline Glastonbury because she softened. She did it because she lit the match, watched the flag burn, and walked straight through the fire. It turns out that all she had to do was refuse to bend to the wills of an industry that never truly understood her. You'd bet that, finally, they're ready to listen now.
