Irish singer CMAT has said she “didn’t sleep” and felt “ill” in the days leading up to her performance on the main stage at Glastonbury Festival.
The musician, real name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, 29, played songs from her back catalogue, as well as singles from her forthcoming third studio album Euro-Country, when she took to the Pyramid Stage in June.
She told BBC Radio 6 Music: “It’s worth noting that the two days beforehand, I was acting like someone who was about to go into war.
“I was shaking with the fear. I couldn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t sleep, like I was ill.
“I was so, so scared. I was so scared for the Pyramid Stage.
“I kind of just kept throwing my head in my hands, and like screaming and being like, ‘Why did they let me do this?’
“And then by the time I walked on stage, the feeling, the first thought that occurred to me was, ‘Oh my God, I’m so relieved that this is about to be over, because I don’t have to be scared of it anymore’.
“And then, actually, weirdly, because I had had that thought, I was like, ‘Oh, I can just enjoy myself, because it’s about to be over and not in front of me anymore’.
She added: “Because of that, I actually did enjoy myself, and we were really well rehearsed. And it just felt amazing. It was amazing.
“It was a weird thing walking out, though, because someone was like, ‘Oh, you should get about 20,000 people at that time’… and I walked out, and I’ve seen 20,000 people before, and I was like, I don’t know, I don’t know what this is. I’ve never seen this wall (of people). They just kept going.”
CMAT said that she had 10 minutes to herself after the performance before she filmed an episode of CBeebies Bedtime Stories.
She said: “When I stepped off the stage, I was a bit shocked, and I was a bit winded, because the weight of everything came down on me as I was stepping down, and I literally curled up in a ball behind the sofa in my dressing room and made my sister close the door and was like, ‘No one can look at me for five to 10 minutes.’
“And I just literally curled up in a ball and I didn’t talk to anyone for like 10 minutes.”
Towards the end of her set on the Pyramid Stage, CMAT waded into the crowd to sing her popular song Stay For Something and chanted “Free Palestine” in reference to sustained Israeli strikes in Gaza.
She later performed a secret set at the BBC Introducing stage.
CMAT released her debut album, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead, in 2022, and followed it up with Mercury Prize-nominated Crazymad, For Me in 2023.
In July, the BBC denied editing out Irish language that features as part of the pop singer’s new single, Euro-Country, when it was played on BBC Radio 1 for the first time.
Her third studio album is set for release on August 29.
