Suzanne Vega has reflected on her history-making headline performance at Glastonbury in 1989, when she became the first woman to headline the festival.
The American singer-songwriter, 65, performed on the Pyramid Stage with her band, including her bassist who had been receiving death threats from an obsessed fan.
On the morning of the festival, the bassist received further death threats, which also targeted Vega, prompting police to advise her not to perform.
“Scotland Yard sat me down and said, ‘We advise you not to do the show,’” the folk-pop artist recalled in an interview with The i Paper.
She eventually went ahead with the performance, wearing a bulletproof vest she borrowed from someone in Scotland Yard.
“A man from Scotland Yard took his and said, ‘You’ll have to wear this.’ He was twice my size, so I had to gaffer tape myself into this giant bulletproof vest, and then put a denim jacket over it,” she said.
“It felt like every song was 20 minutes long. It was not comfortable. We were all nervous.”
The show, however, was a success, and Vega said she remains proud of the fact that she was the first woman to headline Glastonbury. “There’s nothing diminished about that,” she said.
Vega has previously spoken about the incident in interviews, including a 2017 Q&A with The Guardian in which she remarked: “It seemed unlikely that I would be assassinated, but it was shocking and very stressful.”
The “Marlene on the Wall” artist recently released her 10th studio album, Flying with Angels.
In a review for The Independent, music critic Helen Brown praised Vega for “excelling at channelling at life’s outsider observers”, from the heroine of “Chambermaid”, inspired by a Bob Dylan song, and “Witch” about a man who experiences a terrifying encounter with a woman while out with his wife.
“Her level head, outward-facing ideas and collected tone really steady the heart and offer the mind safe opportunities to wander,” Brown wrote. “At a time when loneliness is an epidemic all of its own, it’s rather wonderful to see solitude re-empowered.”
This year’s Glastonbury Festival is being headlined by US pop star Olivia Rodrigo, British rock band The 1975, and Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts.
The festival takes place between 25 to 29 June.
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