Pop’s next wave defeated a London beset with thunder, rain and lightning as they brought the summer energy to this side of the pond.
Malaysian-born Chloe Qisha, British-Japanese Miso Extra, Bolton star Della XOZ were some of the must-see names from earlier in the day, whilst Amber Mark, Olivia Dean and Clairo took to the main stage ahead of headliner Sabrina Carpenter’s second day in the UK Capital.
Whilst thunder and torrential rain soaked through fans that had arrived from one in the afternoon, Amber Mark and Olivia Dean delighted fans with renditions of popular songs such as ‘Lose My Cool’ and ‘Dive’ respectively, whilst Clairo helped usher the sun back to Hyde Park with beloved soulful, feel-good tracks like ‘Juno’ and ‘Sofia’.
With a joyful selection of predominantly female stars and singer-songwriters keeping the energy up, headliner Sabrina Carpenter finally took to the stage for the second night of her two-night stop in London. Kicking off with ‘Busy Woman’ off the deluxe edition of her latest album Short n’ Sweet, she took a delighted crowd clad in predominantly white and blue through some of her top hits and B-sides.
That she had people dancing and signing throughout is no surprise: with some of the biggest hits of the past year under her belt such as ‘Espresso’, ‘Taste’ and ‘Manchild’, any time she raised a microphone to the crowd her lyrics were sung back to her with much aplomb. But despite an overcast London, she put on the most impressive of shows, her and her team bringing her set from her tour over to UK shores to create a completely magical and immersive experience for viewers that elevated her festival stage to one that felt like a once-in-a-lifetime concert experience.
Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet aesthetic revels in dashes of old 70s and 80s Americana, and she manages the fine balance between theatrical and confessional expertly, with a particular highlight being her acoustic rendition of ‘Sharpest Tool’, and her much beloved ‘because i liked a boy’ from her 2022 album emails i can’t send.
Parents and older fans were well rewarded by the special guest appearance of Duran Duran for a rendition of ‘Hungry Like A Wolf’ and Carpenter mentioned how just a few years ago, she was at BST Hyde Park opening for K-Pop star BLACKPINK; now she’s headlining two sold out nights all on her own, a testament to the way her star has truly soared in the past eighteen months. As the fireworks crowned a spectacular time in London, 65,000 could go home revelling in the fact that they’d just experienced two hours of the one of biggest new voices in pop, at the top of her game.
Tickets and more info about the rest of BST Hyde Park, running on select dates until the 12th of July, can be found here.