At this year’s Glastonbury festival there was a notable, righteous feeling that, for once, the correct people were coming out on top – that the artists who’d truly carved out their own lanes, drenched in creativity, character and personality, were the ones who were pulling the big crowds, the five stars and the headlines. From Olivia Rodrigo’s winning Sunday night Pyramid Stage topper to Jade’s pop masterclass, Charli’s gargantuan ‘Brat’ send-off, Wolf Alice’s golden hour ascendence, Doechii’s West Holts magic or CMAT’s scene-stealing turn, all of them had clear, distinct visions, many of them had been grafting for years, and it just so happened that they were all women.
Over here at The Forty Five, we’ve obviously been banging this drum for a long time, but it’s impossible not to look at the map of this year’s festival season and see the girls standing out as bright and brilliant beacons amongst it all. And at Nos Alive 2025 – Portugal’s biggest summer weekender – the same glaringly clear reality applied. When it comes to massive breakthrough acts of the past few years, how will history remember the Thursday evening one-two of Benson Boone and Noah Kahan? As a human backflip that looks a bit like if you shut your eyes and tried to draw Paul Mescal from memory, and the ‘Stick Season’ man, exact USP TBD. Then you turn to that night’s headliner Rodrigo, and the hordes of young girls in the crowd practically vibrating with excitement and inspiration, and the difference is palpable.
If, as the old legend goes, not many people attended the Sex Pistols’ 1976 Manchester show but all of them subsequently went and formed a band, then you can basically see the lightbulb going off in the next generation’s eyes here, except this time, there’s absolutely thousands of them. A rock show with pop sparkle, and a young star so respected she can tick off Robert Smith, David Byrne, The Breeders and more as her willing guests, Rodrigo brings the same high-scale production and winning charm to Lisbon as to Glasto – just this time with added mentions of Portugal’s beloved pastel de nata.
She’s soon usurped on the pastry front, however, by CMAT, who stops to pause her early-evening set so an audience member can chuck her a box from the crowd for a quick snack break. Lord knows you’d never catch Taylor Swift noshing on a custard tart between hits and therein lies the chaotic glory: one of the wittiest, most observant lyricists operating right now, but also a madcap Performer-with-a-capital-P who’ll faux-faint, slut drop, two-step and do essentially anything in the name of the show, it’s hard to think of another recent breakthrough artist who’s been quite so blindingly obviously the whole package. She stomps the walkway, gives Lisbon a TV lesson before ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’ and does all of it without missing a note. All hail the rise and rise of Ciara Mary Alice Thompson.
Girl in Red might have been done a little dirty by the festival with her Friday afternoon booking ahead of Nos Alive’s danciest evening, but there’s nonetheless a loyal throng of fans down the front sporting LGBTQIA+ flags and wearing their love for the queer icon with gusto. Marie Ulven Ringhelm runs the stage with boundless energy, which is tested when the sound cuts out during ‘Phantom Pain’; however, she recovers well. “I’m not a stranger to technical issues, so let’s go to ‘Stupid Bitch’,” she laughs knowingly at the set list’s running order.
At the other end of the evening, meanwhile, St. Vincent writhes her way through her late-night slot like rock’n’roll personified. Precise yet loose, and overtly sexually-charged, Annie Clark suits the shadow of darkness. “I know it’s 1.20 am, which, in your language, is 6 pm. I hope you have all the drugs to keep you up and one day you’ll share them with me,” she smiles innocently ahead of the prowling brilliance of ‘Los Ageless’. For recent LP ‘All Born Screaming’, Clark spoke about ditching the characters of her previous work to reveal the rawest version of herself. A generational guitar hero whose idiosyncratic canon sounds better than ever, whether on the heavy whomp of ‘Broken Man’, the fizz of oldie ‘Birth In Reverse’, or the soaring transcendence of ‘New York’, what’s inside is everything you need on your musical palette: sweet, salty, sour and oh so moreish.
Meanwhile, there’s probably no one who’s having a better day than Amy Taylor. Just a few hours earlier, the Amyl and the Sniffers frontwoman was revealed as this month’s Vogue Portugal cover star; fast forward, and the Aussie punks’ crowd is heaving out of the tent.
Throw in a raucous birthday sing-along (complete with customary downing of a pint) for drummer Bryce Wilson, and Taylor, always a supercharged ball of energy, regardless, looks like she’s about to bounce off the walls. She still finds time to ground the show in the darker goings on of the outside world, finding a Palestine flag in the crowd to plant on stage and addressing the audience about how helpless it all can feel (“I don’t have the answers but I’m thinking about it too and I think it’s fucked up, as you probably do”). But as Taylor flexes in various bodybuilder poses during ‘Some Mutts Can’t Be Muzzled’, her jumpsuit adorned with a huge pair of snarling, pointed teeth, it’s this mix of strength and pure giddy joy that’s her superpower.
