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CMAT runs on to the Pyramid stage, immediately pretends to faint, then delivers the first verse of her opening song lying face down. It’s an intriguing beginning to the kind of Glastonbury set that captures an artist at what seems to be a tipping point of their career, that carries with it the distinct sense that they may be on the verge of becoming absolutely huge. The crowd she draws is vast and they respond to the handful of tracks already released from her forthcoming third album Euro-Country as if they’re her greatest hits. The celebrity-endorsed TikTok dance craze spawned by recent single Take a Sexy Picture of Me has clearly had some role to play in boosting her popularity – its arrival mid-set prompts a spontaneous crowd sing along; someone in the audience is so excited they let a smoke flare off midway through; the big screens reveal that even a security guard standing by the loos at the side of the stage is pumping his fist – but it can’t account for the rapturous reaction afforded her entire set.
What does is that CMAT is a fantastic pop star. It’s not merely that she’s smart, funny, gobbily outspoken, and looks fantastic – today she’s clad in huge earrings in the shape of the euro symboland blue plastic dress that she removes to reveal a matching blue leotard, while mocking the fat-shaming comments posted about her on social media. It’s not just that she is blessed with both a potent, octave-leaping voice and a surfeit of superb, hook-laden songs that split the difference between country mid-70s Fleetwood Mac and come equipped with sharp, witty lyrics. It’s that she’s a quite spectacularly brilliant live performer. She alternates between stage moves that very much hail from the Dance Like No One’s Watching school of abandon, and choreographed routines with her band members: at the climax of one, she rips off her male band members’ skirts in a manner reminiscent of Bucks Fizz’s famous Eurovision moment. She announces herself as possessed of “middle child syndrome, an amazing arse and the best Irish country rock’n’roll band in the world” and beckons for applause whenever she mentions her own name – when the crowd start chanting her name of their own accord, she responds by bending over and wiggling her bum at them. When she successfully encourages the audience to engage in synchronised dance moves to I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!, she looks quite startled at what a crowd this size enthusiastically dancing in unison looks like.
It’s all incredibly engaging and preposterously good fun, and it reaches a climax with Stay for Something She runs to the barrier at the front stage, climbs on top of it, hugs a fan, strikes a series of coquettish poses, then – to the visible horror of the security guard accompanying her – motions for the crowd to part, runs into their centre and delivers the final chorus in the middle of the audience. Back on stage, she leads a chant of “free Palestine” and she’s gone – it really doesn’t seem inconceivable that she could be headlining the next time she returns.
