“Hey London, how you doing? My name’s Sabrina — what’s your name?”. There is a daft cacophony of replies, that shows pretty clearly just how absorbed and starstruck so many people are. Sabrina Carpenter reflects on how this is her second successive sold-out night at BST Hyde Park, and she thoughtfully lists each of the performers with whom she had “shared” the stage with today. She doesn’t need to prove that her second night here is not an afterthought, but tonight, she will certainly try anyway.
Sabrina Carpenter @ BST Hyde Park 2025
“We have more songs for you. I hope that’s okay.” Everybody might have shivers, and may go on to suffer from trench-foot after the biblical-scale mid-afternoon downpour, but everyone is happy to be “damp” for Sabrina Carpenter tonight. Just to clarify, that is her choice of terminology, and something that anyone uninitiated in the raunchy realm of proudly Short n’ Sweet Sabrina, will have to get used to.
The day’s array of performers have been nothing short of impressive. Nobody has come alone, arriving with large impressive bands with brass and wind sections who establish their justified importance on the bill today. Amber Mark has much of the crowd singing and dancing along to her contemporary R&B and modern soul, from the very beginning of the day. And that was even before she began to interpolate the “la-la-las” of Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head into her Donna Summer-style disco anthem Won’t Cry. Unfortunately, the heavy rain cuts Amber’s set far too short. Before performing a song, the Summertown, Tennessee-hailing singer had told everyone that their reaction would decide whether she released it. The soggy situation suddenly ending her performance likely led to everybody wanting more Amber, even more.
Another artist who does not need to shut up and play the hits, is the fantastic neo-soul singer Olivia Dean, who gets a huge positive reaction as she introduces new song Lady Lady, and as she plugs her upcoming sophomore album The Art Of Loving. An anti-rain dance later (I assume that’s what she is doing as she shakes banana-shaped maracas around), it is apparent that nobody’s spirits have been greyed. She was going to make sure that it stays that way for the whole of her hour-long performance. The Walthamstow sets buzzing anticipation even higher for tonight’s main event — “Are you excited to see Sabrina, guys? I saw her last night. It’s very good!”.
By comparison Clairo is much calmer, and she dares to try and create a shift in ambience, all images on the screens in black and white (matching the ominously grey skies quite nicely) making no effort to make her soft rock any harder for an excitable crowd. It is as though she makes a point of this as she and her band take a seat with drinks and act out a semi-formal party scene, before taking their spots onstage — apparently that is where we all are. It is an unusual moment that might not have translated so well in a swamp full of sixty-five thousand people.
As brilliant as her performance sounds, some songs are subtle enough that her vocals become barely audible beneath the long argument over whether or not the giant fake tree built into the Great Oak Stage is a real tree. Although she might not be joined by as large an ensemble as the rest of today’s performers, this is compensated for by the mindbogglingly talented multi-instrumentalist Hailey Niswanger. It is of no surprise that Clairo credits her with playing “everything else”.
Then there is a breaking news report on the screens. It is newsreader Sabrina Carpenter, reporting that we were coming to the spectacular finale of our “sweet day”. It is unusually positive for a news broadcast — has there ever been a news flash that ended on the word “cheerio”? As welcoming as she is, it is not long before she becomes gleefully confrontational with opening song (she does say that her “openings are super tight”) Busy Woman. It might be both the most cheerfully uniting, yet confrontational atmosphere , as everyone takes a furious jab — “If you don’t need my love / Well, I didn’t want your bitch-ass anyway / Yeah, I’m a busy woman”. In no time, Sabrina has set the tone that sticks for about the next eighty-minutes.
Although the 26-year-old’s catalogue is injected with US country influence, a lot of songs lose their country twang in favour of a thumping bass-heavy atmosphere, deciding instead to leave the fiddles and slide guitar cameos back in Los Angeles. Since her dancers have left the stage for a while, perhaps the song that hangs onto that stereotypical southern states whimsy is the hilarious Slim Pickins, which might be the only country song to feature the word “douchebag”.
Sabrina might sing “what a surprise, your phone just died” during Coincidence, it was also at this moment that the most in attendance seem glad that their phone hadn’t yet given up the ghost (coincidence?). There are a lot of phones out being used as periscopes as she sits at the end of the catwalk with guitarist Caleb Nelson for a couple of quiet numbers. Even though she mercifully wears a sparkling silver bodysuit, she is very difficult to see.
Sabrina Carpenter @ BST Hyde Park 2025
Her favourite subject returns in Sharpest Tool during which she is appropriately blunt with her language. It’s not often that a deep ballad states that “we had sex”, and not feel the need to turn it into a word salad about flowers, streams and butterflies. That said, she clearly feels that things still aren’t nearly steamy enough, come her performance of Bed Chem. Wheeled out on a bed in a faux boudoir, and filmed from above, she then performs her breathy, slinky and seductive synth-pop single. It is not as though anyone should have expected anything different. There had been an onscreen warning stating that “DISCRETION IS ADVISED”, and her lyrics were going to be a bumpy ride, about how she enjoyed precisely that with her partner. It is also noticeably a nightmare to sing along with, with some very high notes in its chorus. That doesn’t stop everyone from trying though.
Sabrina has also come with a band and a huge dance troupe. In fact, her cast and crew are big enough that credits roll at the end of the main set, yet this still that is enough for her. She introduced “the legendary” Duran Duran to perform their 1982 new wave anthem Hungry Like The Wolf. Well, two members anyway (vocalist Simon Le Bon, and bassist John Taylor). Regardless, it is an unexpected and somewhat surreal moment that will likely never occur again. At this point, the entire site seems to be animated as lights that previously looked as though they were just to illuminate the field and backstage area begin blinking red.
Sabrina Carpenter @ BST Hyde Park 2025
Sabrina mentions how flattered she is that everyone has braved the disgusting weather. “It’s really, really sweet of you to wait outside”. The day is summed up well by the final moments of closing hit Espresso, as a spectacular firework display explodes from behind the stage while the singer is whisked above the General Admission crowd set far behind those at in the front Golden Circle in a cherry-picker. Despite the atrocious weather, an energetic, technicolored show kept everyone very warm, as Sabrina Carpenter is perfect at the helm. Exactly what any British Summer Time needs.
Live review of Sabrina Carpenter @ BST Hyde Park 2025 by Nick Pollard. Photography by Kalpesh Patel. Additional photography of Sabrina Carpenter by Jordan Curtis Hughes & Alfredo Flores.
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