Zara Larsson headlines BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend with high-energy pop set

Zara Larsson took the main stage at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in Sunderland on Saturday night and did what she does best: moved a crowd of tens of thousands with relentless, gleaming pop songs and the kind of choreography that makes you want to move. The Swedish singer, now 28, spent her headline set working through the bright, propulsive tracks from her latest album Midnight Sun, weaving in the songs that made her name—Stateside, Ain't My Fault, and the one that started it all, Lush Life.

Larsson's dancers have become as much a part of her live show as her voice. Their sharp, sassy movements rippled through the crowd, and when she brought a superfan named Kayleigh on stage to perform the viral Lush Life dance alongside her, the moment crystallized what these festivals are really for: the chance to be seen, to be chosen, to stand next to someone you've been listening to in your bedroom. Kayleigh had traveled to three of Larsson's American shows to see her live. She left Sunderland with a custom t-shirt and a memory that will probably outlast most things.

This was Larsson's fourth time at Big Weekend, but her first as a headline act at a major European festival. Her path to this stage began in 2008, when she won the Swedish version of Britain's Got Talent at age ten. She broke through globally in 2016 when Lush Life became inescapable—the kind of song that defined a year. What's remarkable is that the track surged back into the charts this year, peaking at number three, riding a wave of 2016 nostalgia that swept through social media. A decade-old song, suddenly everywhere again.

She closed her set by moving backward through her own history. The title track from Midnight Sun gave way to Symphony, her 2017 collaboration with Clean Bandit, a song that feels like it belongs to a different era of her career entirely. Before she left the stage, she told the crowd something simple and true: "Summer isn't over. Summer has just started." It's the kind of thing a pop star says at a festival in May, but there was something genuine in it—a refusal to let the moment end.

Larsson wasn't alone in marking a return or a milestone. Lola Young, the 25-year-old Londoner, took the stage earlier in the evening for what amounted to a quiet triumph. She hadn't performed at a festival since collapsing on stage at New York's All Things Go last September. She'd spent months away, working on her physical and mental health, and had only recently begun playing again, starting with an appearance at the Grammy Awards in February. Her set was built from her most honest songs—dealer, Post Sex Clarity, One Thing—and she closed with Messy, the confessional track that won her the Grammy for best pop solo performance and the breakthrough prize at the Brit Awards earlier this year. "It feels good to be back performing," she told the crowd, and you believed her.

Elsewhere on the grounds, James Blake brought a different kind of energy to the New Music stage, his silky voice cutting through smoke and strobes as he moved through Godspeed, Retrograde, and I'll Come Too. Mitski, an artist who doesn't fit neatly into Radio 1's usual mold, drew an impressive crowd to the same stage, pausing mid-set to remind people to drink water and bend their knees. "We don't want any fainters," she said, practical and kind. Louis Tomlinson performed Night Changes, the One Direction song that has become an unofficial memorial to his bandmate Liam Payne, who died in 2024. The opening chords brought a roar from the crowd—the kind of sound that only happens when thousands of people are remembering the same thing at the same time.