Lulu may have officially retired from touring but this summer sees her taking centre stage at Glastonbury for one last hurrah
WORDS: ALISON JAMES
In front of a sold out Palladium in London this April and in celebration of a glittering 60-year career, Lulu took a final bow at the end of her hugely successful Champagne For Lulu tour.
She had announced her retirement from touring and genuinely intended the Palladium date to be her last live performance for some time. At 75 years of age, she felt ready to take a step back.
But the best-laid plans . . .
Emily Eavis, the organiser of Glastonbury, got in touch and asked her to play the festival’s prestigious Avalon stage. Turns out the Scots lassie with one of the biggest and best voices in the music business simply couldn’t turn such an opportunity down.
“It’s a massive deal for her and she can’t wait to play the Avalon stage,” announced a member of her team.
“It will be an emotional moment for her as it’s the last time she will ever play Glastonbury.”
Lulu first played the world-famous festival in 2015 – and loved it.
“The roar from the crowd was deafening,” she recalls.
“I was very surprised, as I didn’t really know what to expect. It was just fantastic and I had so much fun.
“My younger brother, Billy, told me that all the angels were looking down on me because the sound was perfect, the lighting good and the crowd was fabulous.”
Odds are that once Lulu has graced Glasto with her presence this summer, she’ll be jetting off in search of some sun. Following her Champagne For Lulu tour, she flew to the Mediterranean island of Ibiza for a few days to recharge her batteries.
She knows the Spanish isle well having once owned a holiday home there. Lulu first visited in the early 1970s when she was married to Bee Gee Maurice Gibb.
“I’d been a few times with Maurice, his brother Barry and his wife, Linda, who comes from just outside Edinburgh and who became a lifelong friend. Barry and Maurice’s parents, Hughie and Barbara, had a house on Ibiza and they wanted their sons to buy one there, too. But they didn’t fancy it. I said, ‘Oh, all right, I’ll buy one.’
“In the years that followed, I went there many, many times. I took my son, Jordan, there for the first time when he was three months old.
“I don’t own the house any more. I wasn’t going there enough, and it was costing me money, so some years ago I announced I was going to sell i
