Kara Jackson At Glastonbury 2024: Stillness In The Storm

by | Jul 2, 2024

At a festival famous for bombast, spectacle, and decibels that can shake the Somerset hills, Kara Jackson offered something altogether rarer: stillness. Taking to the Park Stage on a golden Saturday afternoon, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter and former U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate delivered one of Glastonbury 2024’s most quietly captivating sets. With little more than her voice, a guitar, and an arsenal of finely-tuned words, Jackson transformed a sprawling festival field into an intimate listening room.

Kara Jackson @ Glastonbury Festival 2024

Kara Jackson @ Glastonbury Festival 2024 (Kalpesh Patel)
Kara Jackson @ Glastonbury Festival 2024 (Kalpesh Patel)

In a setting where many artists chase crowd-pleasing moments, Jackson leaned into subtlety. Her songs — deliberate, thoughtful, soaked in bittersweet humour and plainspoken grief — asked for your attention rather than demanding it. And the reward for those who gave it was immense.

She opened with Pawnshop, a standout from her 2023 debut album Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?, her voice curling around each word with a poet’s precision. Jackson doesn’t sing to fill space — she sings to hold space. Her phrasing is slow, conversational, almost conspiratorial. There’s power in her restraint.

The performance was loose in the best way — unhurried, unpolished, but rich in emotional texture. She cracked jokes between songs, apologised for swearing (“Sorry if there are kids here”), and told stories like an old friend catching you up after years apart. If other acts offered escapism, Jackson offered reflection.

The highlight came with a searing rendition of Free, a track that showcases her uncanny ability to blur the personal and the political. Sung with a slight smirk, the refrain — “Don’t you bother me / Can’t you see I’m free?” — landed like both a declaration and a dare. There’s a tension in her work, a knowingness. Even in her lightest moments, she never pretends life is simple. Dickhead Blues followed, introduced with a gleeful smirk and some wry banter. It was a moment of comic release that somehow managed to be both absurd and deeply cathartic — a reminder that anger and hilarity can occupy the same space.

It’s worth noting how radical Jackson’s stillness felt on a day otherwise dominated by maximalism. Around the corner, Daphni was spinning propulsive club beats at Stonebridge Bar. Later, Coldplay would headline the Pyramid Stage with a technicolor arena show. And yet here, in this pocket of calm, Jackson proved you don’t need lasers or fireworks when you have truth.

Her lyrics — which carry the weight of someone who has studied the world deeply and felt it even more — hit like short stories. They explore grief, girlhood, self-worth, race, and rage, but always with a slant: nothing is ever too literal, too easy. She trusts the listener to do the work. And at Glastonbury, they did.

Before closing her set, Jackson spoke candidly about what it meant to be here — how, years ago, she and her family had huddled around computers in the U.S. to watch Glastonbury streams late into the night. Now, she was on stage, guitar in hand, making her own moment. It was deeply moving without needing to be sentimental.

In a festival lineup stacked with giants — from Little Simz to PJ Harvey to SZAKara Jackson made a lasting impression not by competing for volume, but by mastering intimacy. Her Glastonbury debut was not about stealing the show. It was about slowing it down, making space for feeling, for honesty, for breath.

She may have performed early in the day, far from the main stage, but for those who were there, it felt like something sacred. Jackson didn’t just play Glastonbury. She rewrote what playing Glastonbury could mean.

Review and photography of Kara Jackson at Glastonbury Festival 2024 by Kalpesh Patel

Saturday In Photos At Glastonbury 2024

Pistol Daisys (Matthew Pearson)

Pistol Daisys Embrace The Sweet & Sinister On New Single ‘Honey’ Ahead Of Debut EP And European Tour

Rising Glasgow-based trio Pistol Daisys have returned with their most seductive and sonically ambitious release yet,...
The Sons Of Guns (Cléa Margaret)

The Sons Of Guns Return With Summery New Single ‘I Got It Right’ – A Retro-Tinted Celebration Of Love

Following the success of their debut EP You Shine The Sun, genre-blending five-piece The Sons Of Guns are back with I Got It Right, a radiant new single soaked in sunny ‘70s charm and lyrical optimism. It’s the first taste of new music since the EP’s release, which saw the band earn praise from the likes of BBC Radio London’s Gary Crowley and Eagles Of Death Metal frontmanJesse Hughes, not to mention a career highlight performance at industry showcase Musexpo.

Will Linley (Press)

Will Linley Announces Debut Album ‘Don’t Cry Because It’s Over’ With Reflective New Single ‘First Love’

22-year-old South African alt-pop artist Will Linley has announced the release of his hotly anticipated debut album...
Fatboy Slim @ Latitude Festival 2025 (Kalpesh Patel)

Latitude Festival 2025 Day Two: Fatboy Slim Flares, Clean Bandit Soar & Leon Bridges Smoulders In The Suffolk Twilight

After Friday’s bask in Suffolk sunshine, Saturday arrived with a greyer palette. The weather quickly turned moody,...
Snooper (Blaire Beamer)

Snooper Announce Bold New Album ‘Worldwide’ And Share Genre-Blending Title Track

Nashville’s chaotic punk experimentalists Snooper have announced their second album Worldwide, due for release on 3rd October via Third Man Records. Alongside the announcement, the band have unveiled its lead single and title track — a dizzying, genre-warping evolution of their no-holds-barred sound that signals a bold new era.

Wednesday 13 @ The Asylum, Birmingham (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

Middle Fingers And Murderdolls: Wednesday 13 Haunt The Asylum

On a humid July evening in Birmingham, a city still reeling from the recent loss of its heavy metal godfather Ozzy...
Fearless Vampire Killers @ The Asylum, Birmingham (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

Fearless Vampire Killers Walk The Line In Ozzy’s Town At The Asylum

Taking to the stage at Birmingham’s Asylum on 26th July, Fearless Vampire Killers delivered a high-energy, theatrical...
The Nocturnal Affair @ The Asylum, Birmingham (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

The Nocturnal Affair Light Up The Asylum, Birmingham Supporting Fearless Vampire Killers & Wednesday 13

There’s something beautifully ironic about a band named The Nocturnal Affair igniting a venue like Birmingham’s Asylum before the sun has even fully set. On a night where gothic grandeur met sweltering heat, the Las Vegas dark rock outfit delivered a set that was as emotionally rich as it was musically explosive, proving themselves more than worthy support for Fearless Vampire Killers and the master of macabre himself, Wednesday 13.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This

Share Thing