Jack Burgess
Live editor

Image source, Getty Images

We're pausing our live coverage of Radio 1's Big Weekend 2024 now, after tonight's headliner Raye gave a stunning performance on the main stage.

Don't worry, the party's not over yet.

We'll see you back here tomorrow for a Sunday night line-up packed with musical talent.

Coldplay will be topping the bill and Sabrina Carpenter, Olly Alexander and Vampire Weekend will also be hitting the main stage.

Elsewhere, on the new music stage, CMAT, beabadoobee and Olivia Dean are part of the line-up on the final day of the festival.

See you then.

• Find out more about Raye's headline performance here
• Continue to read about the acts appearing at this year's Radio 1's Big Weekend

Mitch Mansfield
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

Abby, Aine, Milanna and Emily are usually playing rugby on the fields of Stockwood Park.

Tonight, they've seen one of the biggest artists in the country play her biggest show yet, and they "loved" it.

"She was amazing," says Abby.

But after a set that lasted just around an hour, Emily wanted more.

"I thought she was going on to 1am, and I would like three more hours of Raye please!"

The group - who describe themselves as "Luton born-and-bred" - say it's great to have Big Weekend in the town, and they're already looking forward to coming back for more tomorrow.

This was the moment Raye performed one of her hit singles - Prada - during her headline set.

The song was released as a collaboration with Casso and D-Block Europe.

That was the sound of freedompublished at 22:09 British Summer Time 25 May 2024

22:09 BST 25 May 2024

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

A singer who fought the system and won, getting to play on a stage, and a scale, she’d always dreamt of.

“I didn’t think I was ready,” she admitted towards the end of the set.

The crowd weren’t having a bit of it.

Raye’s readiness was most apparent in a mid-set medley of Bed and You Don’t Know Me - two songs she’s previously dismissed as the sound of a writer going through the motions.

Here, they were re-imagined as big band numbers, full of funk licks and scat jazz singing.

And frankly, they sounded better in that arrangement.

No matter what genre Raye touched on - from the Ibiza dance grooves of Black Mascara to the achingly personal piano ballad Ice Cream Man - she seemed to be lost in, and consumed by, the music.

And with a tightly-rehearsed band, she could allow the songs to breathe when it felt right.

“Another 16,” she told the band as Tom Richardson played a sax solo on Worth It, giving him a few extra bars to lean into the groove.

Too often, you see headliners who are in the middle of a tour, turning up at a festival and going through the motions - playing to a click track, sticking rigidly to the setlist, giving the same patter between songs. Not here. Not tonight.

Raye’s Big Weekend set was a one-off.

A bit like the woman herself.

"Have a beautiful night and get home safely," Raye tells the crowd as she ends her gig on the main stage.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Charli XCX turned the new music tent into a sweat-drenched, laser-lit club night.

She appeared in silhouette almost all the way through the show, adding to the sense that she’s simply an alien visiting earth to mutate pop into new, futuristic shapes.

Her set touched all the right bases - from fan favourites like Vroom Vroom her remix of Caroline Polacheck’s Welcome To My Island to crowd-pleasers like Speed Drive and 1999 - presented as a continuous, hour-long, bass-rattling, convention-bothering megamix.

Alone on stage (except for a brief appearance from ShyGirl) she was in constant motion - a mesmerising blur of hip-rolls, hair tosses, stomach crunches and knee-drops.

It was so exhausting that you could forgive a few tell-tale signs of autotune on her vocals (some of them were an artistic, mind you).

Her only concession to convention was when a lone microphone stand was wheeled out for what counts as a ballad in Charli XCX World - the twisty and sublime Party 4 U.

“This is the new music tent and I’ve been making music for over 10 years so I’m kind of old,” she observed, before adding “young at heart”.

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Andrew Rogers
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

We’re going nightclub next with another one of her more pop hits, but when it comes to music Raye says she can’t pick a genre.

She wants to do it all.

And she’s giving us a little bit of everything so far here in Luton.

Manish Pandey
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

Flip A Switch “makes me feel powerful”, Raye says.

One of my Raye favourites, to be honest.

Mitch Mansfield
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

Anyone with a left window seat on their way to Luton Airport has lucked-out tonight, as Raye brings day two of Radio 1's Big Weekend 2024 in to land.

Her career has really taken off since playing one of the smaller stages last year, yet it still feels like the sky’s the limit with a performance on this scale.

Raye's Saturday night headline slot is well underway now and Luton is bouncing.

Here are some of the best snaps from her gig so far:

Image source, PA

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Andrew Rogers
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

35,000 people have tickets for today’s festival, and it feels like all of them are here to see Raye.

To give you a sense of scale, there’s the stage all the way over there.

Manish Pandey
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

Image source, PA Media

The crowd cheers in support for Raye when she mentions her next song, Ice Cream Man, is about sexual assault.

“It forces me to be loud about something I was quiet about,” she says.

There is a solemn, almost awe striking quiet as Raye sings Ice Cream Man.

Very emotional, very moving.

It’s not just Raye feeling emotional during this incredibly powerful song.

People in the crowd are also wiping away their tears.

Manish Pandey
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

“Thanks for sticking around, I know it’s getting cold,” Raye says.

The crowd here is PACKED.

Raye says she’s "not going to swear…" but you can, she tells the crowd.

Mitch Mansfield
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

Charli’s crowd might be smaller by the end of her set than it was at the start - with some sneaking out early to take their place for Raye.

But the hundreds still here “don’t care” - they “love it” - as Charli closes with one of her biggest tunes.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Image source, EPA

The moment we’ve all been waiting for... Raye.

Regular readers will know the story. Signed almost a decade ago, Raye was constantly put down by her record label, who delayed and dithered and refused to release her debut album, even while she racked up hit after hit after hit as a writer and singer for other artists.

Eventually, she broke rank and called them out on social media. The publicity allowed her to negotiate her way out of that restrictive record deal and, almost instantly, she became one of the biggest stars in pop.

Her single Escapism was a chart-topping, Brit Award-winning bombshell. She followed it up with a number one album, My 21st Century Blues, a televised concert at the Royal Albert Hall and, earlier this year, a record-breaking six Brit Awards.

I caught up with her earlier this week at the Ivor Novello Awards – where she’d just been named songwriter of the year – and she confessed she was abstaining from alcohol in order to stay fresh for Big Weekend.

Image source, Ian West/PA Wire

“I'm excited. I'm nervous. I can't drink too much. I’ve got to get my voice ready to give it give it my best.”

She didn’t spill too many secrets – but promised a few “moments of drama” and that she’d preview her upcoming, seven-minute single Genesis.

“Is it my Bohemian Rhapsody? I don't know about that. But what I do know is, I love it.”

This is the moment Raye heard one of her own songs on stage while she was speaking to Pria Rai from BBC Newsbeat ahead of tonight's headline show.

Pria Rai
BBC Newsbeat presenter at Big Weekend, Luton

I have spent much of today with the most incredible view of Stockwood Park.

On the terrace next to the BBC Radio 1 studio, main stage and its growing ground in front of us, the sun over head and the red peaks of the news music stage in the distance.

The name on so many people’s lips.

Raye.

Image source, REUTERS/Isabel Infantes

Presenter of Radio 1’s New Music Show, Jack Saunders was speaking to me about the significance of having a British female closing the show.

"Not to be laughed at, at all. Absolutely huge. It’s the thing on everybody’s lips - where are the ladies at the top of the bill?" he says.

"We’ve seen over the last couple of years her go, no actually, I want to be Raye and I want to be my own individual person," Jack says.

Raye is due to take to the main stage very soon now - at 21:00 BST.

Mitch Mansfield
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

You’re at a Charli XCX show and she wants “everyone up!”

Recent single Von Dutch already goes down like a “cult classic” that’s been out for years.

To keep paraphrasing the song, it’s so obvious she’s number one for a lot of fans here.

Andrew Rogers
BBC Newsbeat reporter at Big Weekend, Luton

Charli XCX jokes that she might be a bit too old to be headlining the new music tent, as she says she’s been making music for 10 years now.

The next one, she says is a classic - “Boys”.

It’s right after her brand new single Von Dutch, and comparing the two you really get a sense of how her musical styles have evolved over a decade.

Pria Rai
BBC Newsbeat presenter at Big Weekend, Luton

Ask people here and so many of them will tell you they are here to see Raye.

Speaking live to BBC News, Raye says she hopes she's “going to do a good enough job”.

It’s Raye’s first time headlining and she describes it as a “really, really big deal”.

"Then my first set last year. Now... [headlining] oh wow," she says.