British Summer Time is officially underway in Hyde Park, and the unbearable heatwave will continue to remind us all of that, all day. Today, Olivia Rodrigo is on hand to kick-off the season of huge events. She is also burdened with making absolutely sure that nobody leaves thinking that they have just seen the biggest ever stage rehearsal, as she will be headlining a sold-out Glastonbury Festival in just two days.
Olivia Rodrigo @ BST Hyde Park 2025
Spoiler alert: No one left thinking that tonight was an afterthought, at all, and it genuinely felt as though she went especially out of her way to prove it. However, that isn’t before an afternoon jam-packed full of pop music, laced with varying degrees of creative wit and grit that fits Rodrigo’s SOUR brand to perfection.
The arena fills fast for brother-and-sister duo Between Friends, who open the main Great Oak Stage with a sensory overload that rivals even the mid-afternoon blazing sun. During new song 1234567, vocalist Savannah Hudson ponders “how many more days until the weekend?”. It turns out that the sold-out crowd has exactly the same frame of mind, having already blitzed here for 3PM on Friday afternoon.
Between Friends channel manic and mischievous, electronic pop power. Although they brand themselves as “laptop dream-pop”, it is not the kind of “float away on electronic wings of song”-kind of dream that anybody would want to have. They open with glitchy sirens, followed by a non-stop, nightmarish cascading pixel chaos of 1990s GeoCities-style pop-ups, and Microsoft WordArt. It is likely that the majority of the audience are too young to even remember the majority of the imagery that blasts past in the blink of an eye.
There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek self-awareness, as they blow all electronic elements out of proportion, complete with filenames on the screen as they leave the stage at the end of viral hit Affection. (“Outro_affection.wav”). It is as if to draw attention to anything prerecorded, and inject attitude where it isn’t usually found. Sure, this section was prerecorded, what are you going to do about it? That sarcasm peaks with recently released single American Bitch, from their upcoming album WOW. Mixing a list of cool flexes about wealth and guns, set to an easy downtempo dance beat. It sounds as though the narrator hasn’t looked away from their phone for weeks.
One might have expected something far more spectacular from next performer, British-Ivorian pop singer Flowerovlove (real name Joyce Cissé), having made her entrance from the biggest stage prop of the day — a giant stiletto. She laments midway through her performance: “I don’t know if you guys can tell, but I don’t have much success with relationships”. This recurring theme perhaps makes her the perfect counterpart for Rodrigo tonight.
However, despite being joined onstage by a live guitarist and drummer, Cissé performs far more subdued and summery pop. She clearly has enough presence, as new single new friends might be the mellowest song to date to have successfully made an audience crouch and jump during its final chorus. It’s an affective way to let out her anger after technical mishaps with her microphone early in her performance.
Defying any uncertainty that her slightly mumbly bedroom pop might translate to an open field, Girl In Red (real name Marie Ulven Ringheim) delivers a shocking surge of rock. It was only appropriate that such energy begins with her one song to have a title entirely in capital letters — DOING IT AGAIN BABY. Unfortunately, there are more technical faults, but she makes best of the situation, grabbing a guitar for an impromptu performance of 4am.
She laments English being her second language, so couldn’t do onstage stand-up so well, however did just fine having accidentally hit herself in the mouth, starting lisping, and realising just how much of a pain the phrase “British Summer Time” with her accent. She shares with us the useful knowledge that the Norwegian term for lisping was phonetically similar to the word for “lesbian”. I don’t know whether that is true, but it made for a very crowd-pleasing segue into girls.
Marie and the crowd are equally relieved when everything is fixed in time to perform bad idea. Or “bad fucking idea” as her live embellishments would suggest the lyrics are now. Throwing in naughty words that you didn’t remember hearing in the song before would be a recurring theme when tonight’s main act arrived.
While Girl In Red had sensibly left her namesake red beanie at home, The Last Dinner Party were traditionally overdressed I for the sweltering heat. The lyrics to Burn Alive are only appropriate as vocalist Abigail Morris fans herself.
Abigail pirouettes across the stage and she cannot contain her joy, even during rare gentler tracks On Your Side. She can be seen talking and laughing with her bandmates when any other of the instrumentalists are centre stage. There is something very celebratory about this performance, as Abigail explains that this is their third Hyde Park show, having opened the main stage for The Rolling Stones in 2022, and supporting Lana Del Rey in 2023. Apparently even keyboardist Aurora Nishevsci’s grandfather is here to watch them perform for the first time.
Now second on the bill with an hour to themselves, and with as yet, but likely soon to be released songs to play such as Big Dog and This Is The Killer Speaking, it is no wonder that they hold the event dear. There is definitely an angrier and darker second album brewing, likely more punk-influenced than the baroque art rock mischief of debut single and singalong set closer Nothing Matters. Abigail said that when they first performed there that they didn’t know how to use such a big stage. They are now well practiced, and seem like they belong.
The Last Dinner Party @ BST Hyde Park 2025
Olivia Rodrigo instantly grabs the attention of everyone, opening with bad idea right (no relation to Girl In Red’s bad idea). She pauses for an extra few seconds on the word “stop!”, and absorbs the screams and applause. After singing a verse directly into the cameras as she skips and then seductively crawls along the catwalk, she has established total conversational connection with everybody. Together, she and everyone in attendance will now sing word for word almost the entirety of her two albums.
Olivia Rodrigo @ BST Hyde Park 2025
The fact that she performs her biggest hits to date within the first few minutes of the show, such as breakthrough hit drivers license (from a dazzling, metallic piano), is a testament to her confidence in the quality of her material. On many records, let alone pop records driven by singles, these later songs could sink into obscurity. She has performed her escalating mega-hit stream of bitter consciousness vampire just four songs in, when it would be appropriate for a spectacular finale.
During a guitar solo (courtesy of fantastic guitarist Sophie Giuliani), Olivia seems genuinely overwhelmed as she tries to process the scale and reaction of the crowd, extending into what she calls a “kind of romantic” sunset. Although the song happier is a clever mismatch of a bluntly envious and profane break-up lyrics, set to a romantic waltz, Olivia could not look happier to be there.
Olivia Rodrigo @ BST Hyde Park 2025
Not content with making tonight just like any other show, she introduces to the stage who she considers “one of [her] favourite Brits, and one of the best songwriters of all-time” — Ed Sheeran. Together they perform a brilliant duet of Sheeran’s The A Team. There is a peculiar serenity during their performance, likely due to a mixture of the crowd’s sheer bewilderment about what they were witnessing, bewitchment from the performance, and being out of breath from an hour of non-stop screaming. Also, considering the age of a lot of Olivia Rodrigo fans, they might be too young to know the words. Seriously, don’t look up how long ago The A Team came out!
Ed Sheeran with Olivia Rodrigo @ BST Hyde Park 2025
The grit and anger of many of her tracks, especially her guitar-driven songs, should beckon a more diverse crowd in the future. One only has to see begin her angsty encore with brutal and good 4 u, as the stage is ablaze with pyrotechnics, and she snarls through a megaphone about her lack of a “fucking teenage dream”, and worse still, her inability to parallel park. Although the show is by no means raw (in fact it is probably fine-tuned and choreographed within a split-second), there is a rock and pop-punk show force that is much more comparable to Paramore, than to other singers who graduated from Disney.
Olivia Rodrigo @ BST Hyde Park 2025
“There are so many people here, and you’re all wearing purple!”. She isn’t lying. It was next to impossible to get lost on the way here. Just follow the infinite blinding glare of purple glittery cowboy hats. In fact, Girl In Red had earlier asked “you in the purple hat” to sing along, which was an efficient way to get everyone singing. This is apparently a new addition to the many reasons why London might be her favourite city, and even that she lots of special moments in Hyde Park.
Or so she says. It is all too common for artists to make hollow claims for a positive reaction (as if she actually needs that help). She has been won over by the British way, enough that she even ate a boiled egg with soldiers for breakfast this morning. So does Olivia really love London that much? After an energetic and entertaining ninety minutes, everybody would be completely convinced, that there was nowhere that either she nor her fans would rather be.
Olivia Rodrigo @ BST Hyde Park 2025
Live review of Olivia Rodrigo, Between Friends, Flowerovlove, Girl In Red & The Last Dinner Party at BST Hyde Park 2025, London on 27th June 2025 by Nick Pollard. Photography from Isha Shah, Sophia Carey & Jennifer McCord.
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