On stage and in the crowds we're bringing our own vibe to festivals and shows
Charli XCX. Beyoncé. CMAT. Self Esteem. Lola Young. Lana Del Rey. Sabrina Carpenter. My timeline is full of wobbly clips from recent gigs: zoom-ins to show the diva performing, gentle spin to reveal the delirious women in the audience, including the video-er.
And pictures: selfies of gig-goers in glamorous outfits; snaps of them arms aloft, bellowing along, teary, triumphant. No doubt, this weekend, Billie Eilish and her fans will make a strong social media appearance (she’s playing arenas across the country, including London’s O2 for six nights). It’ll be Billie-tastic on my feed, anyway; I’m going on Friday.
Women are turning up and turning out for gigs and festivals in huge numbers. It’s hard to get stats – ticketsellers such as Ticketmaster rarely give out customer particulars – but, in the US, a survey showed that Gen Z women now outnumber men by 10% at gigs.
From my own experience, I’ve been to a lot of gigs this year and seen a lot of other women there. Pop music has always attracted girl fans, of course, and it’s expanded its remit to include more non-conventional women artists: the quirky, the queer, the messy, the weird. This year has seen smash hits from Chappell Roan, Lola Young and Doechii, none of them squeaky clean pop, and they bring in new fans.
Women music-lovers are also swelling the audience at indie gigs that would have had a predominantly male audience 20 years ago. Go to see Fontaines DC or Kneecap and you’ll find at least half the audience are women. Friends who’ve been at the Oasis gigs have reported that although there are still mostly men there, – 65% was the usual estimate – the atmosphere is far more female-friendly than in the past. The simple fact of more women being present makes for a more upbeat vibe. Especially young women, dressed in their out-out version of Britpop regalia: a Man City shirt made into a mini-dress; a bucket hat teamed with hot pants.
Perhaps all this shouldn’t be a surprise. Women are good at organising a big night out, finding something to do that isn’t just sitting in the pub, drinking. But I’m old enough to remember when gigs were, mostly, a boy thing. When, if you ventured outside pop to alternative music concerts, you found them dominated by men. When, even if women were allowed to be indie stars, they had to pass male rules: be cool, pass the credibility test.
In the 90s, Elastica dressed like men and made deliberately non-girly music in order to be taken seriously. In that laddish era, Oasis gigs could be rotten for women (a friend who went to Knebworth told me, “I have never, before or since, been told to get my tits out so many times in one day”). Glastonbury always had more men than women attending, partly because it had far, far more men playing. Just 10 years ago, its line-up had only 270 women artists, compared with 2,336 men. Even bands like the Beastie Boys, whom women loved, had gigs dominated by moshing, bolshy blokes. I still have a scar on my lip when I made the mistake of going down the front for Sabotage.
Not any more. Since lockdown, those darn gals are everywhere. In 2024, women and non-binary acts made up 54% of the Glastonbury line-up and this year you couldn’t move for cute huns in hair-rollers, girls dressed like they were off on the best hen night ever, groups of noisy women having the time of their lives.
I cry when I remember all the mums and daughters at Swift’s Eras gig last year
At Lola Young, who played Woodsies, it was a pussy riot. Self Esteem, the same. When I went to the Spanish festival Primavera, in Barcelona, a month ago, the headliners were three women – Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan – and the audience (surprise!) mostly women and gay men. There were short shorts. There were cowboy hats. There were many, many sequins. At both festivals, I saw CMAT playing to hordes of young women. And Haim. And Wet Leg.
The acts make a difference, definitely. But also, music is being delivered to people in more diverse, direct and democratic ways. Instead of music being a carefully curated white-guy history - The-Beatles-begat-the Sex-Pistols-who-begat-Oasis - it’s a huge sea that anyone can splash about in. We can all hear stuff on TikTok, follow that artist, and be told when they’re playing. Even if that artist is meant to be a guy thing.
Another factor: middle-aged women, who traditionally dropped out of concert-going once they had kids, are now taking those kids, particularly their daughters, to gigs. I’m not the world’s biggest Taylor Swift fan, but it makes me cry when I remember the mums and daughters at her Eras gig last year.
And many of these female artists are expressing the feelings not only of young women, but older ones too. We’ve always had women to admire and to express our feelings, whether it’s Billie Holiday, Madonna, Amy Winehouse or Lily Allen. But with more female artists come more female angles and over the past few years there have been a plethora of lady bangers or woman anthems –womanthems? maybe not. Tracks that get specific and speak the truth.
Doechii’s Denial is a River (enjoying yourself at parties; bonkers breathing exercises). Raye’s Ice Cream Man (moving on from sexual assault). Self Esteem’s I Do This All the Time (“all the days that you get to have are big”). Lola Young’s Messy (no matter what you do, it’s never quite right for some). Tracks that jump out of the musical sea like flying fish, glittering and strong, to reveal their glory and make a splash, just for the hell of it.
Those songs speak to all ages of women because what they talk about happens to all of us. And they make you want to be in a room, or a stadium, or a field, singing along with the artist, weeping, dancing, taking pics, giddy. A proper night out, alongside all the other women doing exactly the same thing. And if I’ve noticed, the industry has too. Surely a British festival will be brave enough to book three nights of women headliners soon?
Photograph by Joseph Okpako/WireImage
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