With August’s Green Man having taken place the previous weekend, attendees were once again reminded of the Powys festival’s annual efforts to cut ties with non-renewable energy sources. Not too far from Bannau Brycheiniog, Bristol’s Forwards Festival has adopted a similar mindset for its two stages this year. Artists on the West Stage generate their own drinking water from green hydrogen technology, while the East Stage uses smart batteries from Patchway energy supplier Greener Power Solutions.
It feels like a timely affair on site, as the grass underfoot appears damaged from a long summer of drought. With Forwards running over three days this year, the weekend will likely see it killed off completely under the feet of thousands of festival-goers arriving to catch the likes of Wet Leg, Little Simz and Self Esteem on the edge of the city.
Today’s lineup, Forwards Presents, is a new addition, and the presence of headliner Lorde – plus, notably, Djo and Audrey Hobert – ensures fans are queueing from the early hours of the morning for barrier spots across both stages.
Those in place by midday are treated to a high-energy performance from Liverpool’s Girl Group, and again another entry on the month’s festival calendar comes to mind, Olivia Rodrigo’s women-led Daisy Chain Fields in California. Girl Group were the ultimate pin-up for everything the event stood for: female empowerment, and looking out for one another. Of their setlist, Rage Song provides the perfect opportunity to promote personal boundaries, while the melancholic Food Shopping induces a lump in the throat.
During a downpour, Grove’s midday set is unfortunately cut short. Nevertheless, the Bristol producer/vocalist still makes the most of their stage time with a fusion of deep bass and class politics. The pure punk energy seeps through the screens either side of the stage as Grove gives two fingers to the monarchy in Big Boots: “The power is ours, just gotta reach out and take it!” they profess, between high kicks.
Luckily, the clouds parted for 20-year-old singer-songwriter Esha Tewari, who went about her business with a gloomy grey sky looming overhead. Over on the West Stage, pop’s new it girl Audrey Hobert donned a bright yellow raincoat on stage accordingly, matching her charismatic flair as she bounced around the stage to the likes of Sue Me, Drive and Chateau, all taken from her 2025 debut Who’s The Clown?
A magnificent sunset precedes Djo’s evening appearance on the East Stage: Joe Keery, plus a band which includes members of psychedelic rockers Post Animal, making their Bristol debut. While Keery may have first found renown as an actor, he’s keen to remind us that his music career isn’t a side-hustle, but a passion which has fed into every moment of his life, whether recording between takes on the Stranger Things set or studying at university in Chicago. (The lyrics of Djo songs Charlie’s Garden and End Of Beginning refer to these moments in colourful detail.) With touring for The Crux album –which details returning to yourself post-heartbreak – finishing this weekend, the set feels like a curtain closing on a chapter of Keery’s career as Djo.
First emerging as an angsty Kiwi teen who was “only as young as the minute is,” Lorde’s profile has steadily grown since the release of 2013 debut album Pure Heroine. Her Bristol debut feels long overdue, arriving in the moody, electronic blue afterglow of her latest album, 2025’s Virgin. Now newly independent and freed from a development deal she signed with Universal Music aged just 12, the Royals singer expressed a hunger for something new earlier this year.
Lorde plus her band and dancers perform on a see-through floor, with an onstage water fountain, with the setlist featuring songs from all four of her albums. The singer also highlights Forwards’ aforementioned sustainability efforts – appropriately for someone whose third album was titled Solar Power – and later in the set, a mass singalong ensues to her verse on Charli XCX’s Girl, So Confusing, with the chorus of Green Light producing a similar eruption amongst the crowds.
Witnessing this particular set on this stage, complete with design, lighting and dancers, feels like witnessing Lorde at the height of her career as a pop artist. Many leaving the site, not yet fans of the star, are likely to be newly converted.
Forwards Presents, Clifton Downs, Bristol, Fri 28 Aug
words EMMA WAY photos GIULIA SPADAFORA
