There are many ways to close a Pyramid Stage headliner. Fireworks and emotional displays of gratitude are fairly common, sometimes an encore. Kendrick Lamar’s strategy, though, will go down in Glastonbury history. 

The 35-year-old rapper finished his set with a new song, “Saviour”, from the recently released and never-toured album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Fake blood dripped from the glittering crown of thorns he wore, drenching his white shirt. Surrounded by the troupe of dancers that had turned his set into a piece of performance art, over a backing track fallen silent, Lamar spat lyrics that had never been heard before: “They judge you, they judged Christ. God speed for women’s rights”. Over and over. A one hundred thousand-strong crowd listened intently, rapt. I felt my hand rise, my fingers click in support.

Lamar sped up, shaking his head from side to side, his closed eyes and teeth soaked in blood, shouting now. “They judge you, they judged Christ, godspeed for women’s rights”. Then he threw down the mic and walked off stage. In that moment, Lamar offered his career-defining moment as a protest of the overturning of Roe v Wade in his home country.

“I’m devastated and terrified,” Olivia Rodrigo said, hair blowing in the golden-hour breeze.

In the crowd, the cheers that had risen for his chanting fell silent for a second: Lamar had vanished, the stage fell black, the Glastonbury logo appeared on the screens. Usually, the closing moments of a headline set soundtrack the movement of thousands of people - to the toilets, to the bar, to beat the crowds in the Naughty Corner. But everybody just stood still, staring at the dark hole of the Pyramid Stage ahead. Shocked and confused, trying to process what they had seen.

Glastonbury has always been a politicised festival. There’s an entire field dedicated to setting the world to rights, several others to saving the planet. Jeremy Corbyn has spoken on stage, this year Greta Thunberg addressed the crowds. There isn’t an advert in sight, but there are countless billboards that speak to the climate catastrophe or disarming nuclear weapons. Change, and the idea of making it, hangs in the air like smoke from a flare.

But Glastonbury is also otherworldly: a sprawling city that pops up for less than a week, with rabbit holes and gorgeous vistas to roam and explore. Here, the normal world struggles to filter in. When Michael Jackson died in June 2009, people only started to believe it when the performers started to play his songs. Seven years later, Brexit became a grim reality when it was discussed on stage. Similarly, I learned that Roe v Wade had been overturned from Phoebe Bridgers, who led the crowd at the John Peel stage in a chant of “Fuck the Supreme Court, Fuck America”, after lambasting “all these irrelevant old motherfuckers trying to tell us what to do with our fucking bodies.” As she bowed out, Bridgers told us where to donate to fund causes providing American women with access to reproductive healthcare. The sentiment bloomed across the festival. Backstage, the front page of The Glastonbury Free Press yelled “Headliners lead the fight for women’s rights” (this was Saturday morning - Paul McCartney’s blind ignorance of the news was yet to occur). Joe Talbot, frontman of Idles, declared that America had been taken “back to the middle ages” from the Other Stage. Later, Billie Eilish introduced Your Power after saying that the day she headlined Glastonbury was nevertheless “a really, really dark day for women in the US”. Rebecca Lucy Taylor of Self Esteem dedicated her poignant ballad “The 345” (“I just want to let you know there's a point in you”) in a set fuelled by female self-empowerment. Lorde adapted her monologue from “Secrets From a Girl” to include a desultory “fuck the Supreme Court”, while Charli XCX slipped her condemnation of the Supreme Court into her slick, synths-heavy Sunday headliner at the John Peel stage.

Among these women – it really was a very good year for female artists at Glastonbury – it was 19-year-old TikTok heroine Olivia Rodrigo whose statement I found most affecting. The “Drivers License” singer drew an enormous crowd of predominantly young women to the Other Stage, in “I <3 Free Weed” teeshirts and waving Tracey Beaker banners. In a voice as soft and high-pitched as Minnie Mouse’s, the former Disney child star named the five SCOTUS judges responsible for overturning the ruling. “I’m devastated and terrified,” she said, hair blowing in the golden-hour breeze. “So many women and so many girls are going to die because of this. I wanted to dedicate this next song to the five members of the supreme court who have sowed us that at the end of the day, they truly don’t give a shit about freedom. The song is for the justices: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorush, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh. We hate you! We hate you.” For Lily Allen, of all people, to appear to sing her anti-Bush hit “Fuck You” with Rodrigo was admittedly surprising, but the sentiment was undeniable. Sometimes the best way to respond to absurdity is with more of it.

We only started to accept that Kendrick’s set was over when Glastonbury’s saddest sign appeared on the Pyramid Stage screens instead of him, the one from Emily and Michael Eavis announcing the end of another year, and encouraging us to travel home safely. We would go home and pour over the news, see our Instagram feeds fill up with outrage and protest.

Like many things that happen at Glastonbury, learning of disastrous news through the filter of a performance is uncanny and shimmering. Instead of clarity and headlines there are feelings. But this can leave behind an optimism missing in the reports. The overturning of Roe v Wade is horrifying, but there is hope to be found in dedications like Lamar’s and Lorde’s and Rodrigo’s. They say that we will not stand for it. Hours after Lamar walked off stage the sun would rise over the vale of Avalon again. It is always darkest before the dawn.

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