Olivia Rodrigo on stage in Hyde Park [All photos © ISHASHAHPHOTO]

THERE must be a checkpoint when you leave Glastonbury where shady soldiers use some futuristic purple violet machine to hypnotise the departing festival goers into insisting for ever more that they have just had the best three days of their lives and that everybody else must be informed of this.

Call it a conspiracy theory story, but it’ll be a big story when it all comes out.

If we are talking in strict music terms, and not basing it on the convivial fun of camping with your mates and popping magic paracetamols together, it would be impossible to declare this year’s offering as a utopian soundscape.

Neil Young padding around seemingly confused about whether he wanted to be there or not, the definition of dull, The 1975 picked as headliners and Rod Stewart bringing out Mick Hucknall as a supposed treat.

Pulp tried to salvage the entertainment, singing their guaranteed floorfillers but all-in-all it was a hard watch.

The dross did, however, pave the way for Olivia Rodrigo to steal the show with a Sunday night blast, a closing set which revealed to a wider audience that’s she’s not the Katy Perryesque pop schmaltz that too many grown ups have assumed her to be.

Never knew she rocked out like this, was the general consensus from the mums and dads on Facebook.

And yet you could have saved yourself the bother of going all the way to Somerset and seen her in top form just a couple of days earlier, as she opened the always immaculate British Summer Time series in Hyde Park.

This was a performance that said “top that!” to those who will follow her on the stage by the big tree this July.
Sabrina Carpenter ­– I’ve learnt in recent days you are generally either one or the other: O-Rod or S-Carps ­– will give it her best shot this coming Saturday.

The Rodrigo troops who piled into the park in a closely-observed uniform of glitter skirts were no new recruits.

These teenage girls, all of whom looked like they’d said “you wouldn’t understand, Dad” at least 10 times in the previous 24 hours, were ready to sing (or scream) every line back to their star.

The surprise twist is that, in between great swishes on her guitar, Rodrigo is very fluent in swearheli and these youngsters were shouting lyrics like “where’s my f***ing teenage dream”.

That nice girl from the Disney Channel is now full of fiery angst and is clearly speaking to a generation whether their own lives are full of romantic injustices or not. You wouldn’t understand, Dad.

At 22 she’s found a way to not only be convincing to teenagers, and isn’t it nice to see a pop act which utilises a proper axe-crunching band and not a backing track, but also become a guilty pleasure for the elders.

The accompanying adults certainly knew all the words to the emotional song Vampire worn out by radio station breakfast shows in 2023.

Ed Sheeran was introduced as a surprise guest

They also whooped too much when her pal Ed Sheeran turned up as the special guest; a moment which was noticeable for the way some of the younger fans, conversely, seemed to see his appearance as more of an inconvenience than a surprise delight.

They were much happier when Rods launched into hits like Drivers License, their anthem, on her own.

And that sort of summed up Rodrigo’s triumph both here and at Glasto.

In the park Rodrigo showed there was no need for endless costume changes (there was one), stage tricks and backing dancers à la Beyoncé at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

She worked this one out on her own with cute stories and cuter songs, all then suddenly perforated with a trademark blast of inspiring lyrics about how we’re not going to put up with any more of this shit, with the shit being whatever problem anybody from any year has: too much homework, a boy who ghosting you on text, or working out a tax return.

In her civvies, she could sit on the tube in London and not be spotted, which is part of her charm and allowed her to dance to Jarvis Cocker among the hoi polloi at Worthy Farm over the weekend.

Her half-scripted chatter about loving London and the UK ­– apparently adoring pints at midday and boiled eggs, as if no other country drinks and eats them – was all on point too.

There was a routine in which she climbed a pole and sang through a red megaphone, but she seemed to know that this setting and this series of concerts didn’t need more.

When the sun dips on central London there aren’t many better places to watch music than outdoors in Hyde Park.

And there’s no need for anybody at the exit doors ordering you to tell anybody who w-ll listen that you had the best time ever.