Lola Young powers through Coachella 2025 set despite illness

Lola Young battled through illness to play her first ever show at Coachella on Friday (April 11).

• READ MORE: Lola Young tells us about the success of ‘Messy’ and her love of The Cure

The ‘Messy’ singer and NME Cover star performed on the Mojave Stage, but in posts shared on social media, it is clear that she was fighting against a sickness bug during the hour-long set.

“I’m either going to faint or throw up, one of the two is about to happen,” she told the crowd. “Guys, tell me I’ve got this.”

Later on, she added: “I feel a bit sick, so if I do throw up, I apologise, please don’t post it on the interweb.” Other clips show her drinking from a water bottle and tapping her throat, as she struggles through the performance.

@eyearewoke

She’s so real #lolayoung #coachella

♬ Messy – Lola Young

@lolaismessy

i’m so proud of her, this is mental!!!! #lolayoung #messy #conceited #ontour #liveperformance #coachella2025

♬ original sound – & i’m too messy

Young’s set was dominated by tracks from her 2024 album ‘This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway’, but it did include two new songs – an unnamed track that she told the audience would be her next single, and another named ‘Spiders’.

Lola Young played:

‘Good Books’
‘Wish You Were Dead’
‘Walk On By’
‘Don’t Hate Me’
‘You Noticed’
[new song]
‘Big Brown Eyes’
‘Spiders’
‘Messy’
‘Conceited’

As of the first week of April, ‘Messy’ is the most successful song of 2025 in the UK, racking up 597,000 chart units in the first quarter of the year. It reached Number One in January and remained there for four weeks.

Discussing the song’s success, she told NME on the red carpet at the BRIT Awards: “I think it’s the idea that you don’t have to be this thing that stereotypers want women to be. It’s not even just that though, because everyone can feel like they’re not enough for somebody. ‘I want to be me, is that not allowed?’ – that’s a great lyric! I’m very proud of it and it feels like it’s resonating with people on a wider scale [than I expected].”

Young also recently hit back at claims that she is a “nepo baby” and an “industry plant” after it came to light that she is related to Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo.

“I mean what kind of rubbish is that?” she said. “I have so much to say on that which I can’t even talk about. But I’m not a nepo baby, I’m not an industry plant, there we go I said it. I’ve cleared that up for all those losers that want to comment rubbish on the internet. Just find something better to do, you’re sad, you’re lonely.”

Elsewhere at the first weekend of Coachella 2025, Lady Gaga performed a theatrical five-act set and A. G. Cook brought out Danny Brown, performing a host of tracks before remixing Charli XCX’s ‘Party 4 U’.

Charli XCX brought out Lorde, Billie Eilish and Troye Sivan for her highly-awaited performance, and there was controversy during Kneecap‘s set after they led an anti-Margaret Thatcher chant, with fans reporting the online stream had cut out shortly after.

YouTube will be livestreaming the festival via the Coachella YouTube channel. Check back here for all our Coachella updates.

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