Lewis Capaldi has described his performance at Glastonbury in 2023 as “the worst moment of his life”.
The singer made an emotional return to the festival last month, performing a surprise set on the Pyramid stage two years after being unable to finish on the same stage.
In 2023, Capaldi powered through as he steadily lost his voice, not long after opening up about his diagnosis of Tourette’s syndrome.
“The reason I think I got so anxious in the first place is that I wasn’t living in the moment at all,” he said.
Getty Images“I was catastrophising thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
Capaldi compared it to the climax of a film about a kid who dreams of being a singer.
“I’m achieving my dream here… and it’s not how I thought it was going to be,” he said.
“And the thing that I wanted to do the most made me feel the worst.”
“Second song in, I was probably just like, ‘this has to like… I can’t keep doing this to myself and other people as well’”
Lewis Capaldi
As Capaldi’s voice faltered, the huge crowds chanted the lyrics back to him.
Capaldi said that when he watches footage of the performance he doesn’t see it as happy or uplifting.
“I just see someone who’s completely not there and just having literally the worst moment of his life,” he said.
On New Year’s Eve the same year, he announced that he planned to take a hiatus to focus on his health, citing anxiety.
“It was a big, big, big old gig,” he said.
“Second song in, I was probably just like, ‘this has to like… I can’t keep doing this to myself and other people as well’.
“People were coming to gigs, and I was like ‘that’s not how you want to watch a show’.
“As far as I was concerned, I was like, ‘I’m done indefinitely’.”
Last month, Capaldi release a new single and made his successful return to Glastonbury. He then announced a new tour, including two dates in Scotland.
Getty ImagesHe credits therapy for feeling the best he has felt in a long time.
The Grammy-nominated artist said he had previously been “lying” to a therapist and “telling them what I thought they wanted to hear” – but that he now “feels amazing” after.
“I really struggle with it, it’s not fun. I don’t have a fun time there.
“I feel amazing after, it’s like going to the gym, I think, which obviously I’m well versed in.
“Sometimes it can be really difficult, but I think I do it because I realise how important is for me to continue to feel good, because I’ve felt the best I felt in a long time through therapy, I would say that has been the cornerstone of like, why I feel how good I feel now.
“I think that’s a big thing that I’ve noticed or found, is that different therapists work for different people.
“So I think it’s all about giving the time to therapy as well, also not expecting that quick fix and I’m someone who likes instant gratification and sort of the quickest thing and all the rest of it, so I think coming to terms with that was a big thing.”
On his preparations for Glastonbury this year, Capaldi said he had performed “secret gigs” that were “warm-up shows” in Scotland to “ease in”.
“I think I’ll always be an anxious person,” he added.
“I think accepting that that’s always going to be there for me is a big thing. It’s about how I respond to anxiety and how I respond to a lot of stuff in my life.
“It’s how I, I don’t like this phrase, but ‘show up for myself’. I have neglected to look after myself in the past, both mentally and physically, and I have made promises to myself that I haven’t kept.
“I think for me, it’s accepting that I’m always going to have this stuff there, it’s about how I sort of respond, what steps I take to sort of remain at like base level.”
Capaldi’s career break lasted 734 days.
“Therapy has been such a massive part of my last two years, a massive part of the reason that I’m able to be a musician again”, he said.
“In partnership with BetterHelp and to sort of reflect my experience of therapy and the importance I feel it has in my life and other people’s lives, we’re giving away 734,000 free hours of therapy.
“The importance of that number is that it’s 1,000 hours for every single day that I have, well, since I last played on stage and I feel like, if I can be a part of sharing that with other people, why not?”
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