Move over Taylor Swift: Olivia Rodrigo is this generation’s Eddie Van Halen – her Glastonbury performance proved it

Nearly a decade ago, YouTube commentators were furiously debating whether Taylor Swift was “the new Eddie Van Halen”.

It wasn’t because their guitar styles are remotely similar. The comparison was simply due to their ability to inspire. Here was a hugely visible musician, motivating a new generation of players – especially young girls – to pick up the guitar, in the same way that Eddie Van Halen did in the 1980s.

You could make the case that every subsequent generation has had its own EVH figure. Kurt Cobain was the catalyst for ’90s guitarists. Tom DeLonge for Noughties players. And if Tay-Tay was the 2010s’ guitar hero, Olivia Rodrigo is the Eddie Van Halen for the 2020s.

This was made abundantly clear during her headline spot at Glastonbury 2025 last night (June 29). Closing out one of the biggest music festivals in the world, Rodrigo stormed through an hour-and-a-half set that showcased her songwriting range – from Warped Tour-channeling anthems to TikTok-era ballads – but also her profound love for guitars and the music it inspires.

10 songs in, she brought out bona fide goth legend Robert Smith for a pair of spellbinding Cure covers. Indeed, Rodrigo has immense respect for all the artists who came before her: she joined No Doubt on stage for their Coachella reunion, collaborated with St. Vincent, and has previously cited Rage Against the Machine as her favorite band.

For her GUTS world tour, she insisted on bringing ’90s stalwarts the Breeders in as a support act, introducing them to a far younger demographic than their typical audience. “She likes loud guitars – in this day and age!” band leader Kim Deal later said. “She finds loud guitars exciting and wants to be around them.”

Like Swift, Rodrigo is a world-class songwriter, but she’s no technical virtuoso. She leaves that to her stellar band. Daisy Spencer handles the biting riffs of bad idea right? and provides the chonk behind the savage live renditions of brutal.

Her guitar foil is LA session vet Arianna Powell, whose dextrous and melodic leads hark back to EVH more than you might expect from a pop-punk show.

Cycling through a collection of Jackson and Charvel Superstrats, dropping two-hand tapping, legato and some cheeky diminished arpeggio panache into her extended solos, she’s the Jennifer Batten to Rodrigo’s Michael Jackson. The Nita Strauss to her Alice Cooper. A guitar hero for people who didn’t realize they needed a guitar hero.

And this is where Rodrigo deserves serious praise from the guitar community: not only does she herself play guitar for half the set – picking up a Fender Mustang and Jazzmaster, plus Gretsch and Martin acoustics – but she makes sure to spotlight the musicians surrounding her. It feels more like a band than a solo act.

That band is made up entirely of women, and they’re playing to an audience that – if the BBC’s Glastonbury footage is anything to go by – is predominantly made up of young girls. If even a small percentage of that audience walks away inspired to pick up a guitar, that leaves the future of the instrument in safe hands.

One day, I hope to take my own daughter to see Rodrigo, and I’m confident she will leave that experience inspired – if not to pick up the guitar, at least more receptive to guitar-based music in general (if her uncool dad hasn’t already put her off for life at that stage).

People will complain, as they always do – and lord knows I’ve written about the problem of gatekeeping in the guitar community – but they would do well to remember how vital it is to have new voices in the guitar world. The kinds of players who make kids run to their parents to ask for a guitar. And once that desire to play takes root, who knows where it will take them. It’s the initial spark that creates a lifelong obsession.

And hey, I’d wager Eddie Van Halen would be in favor of the world having more guitarists – no matter what kind of music inspired them to pick it up. As he once told GW, “There is no such thing as bad music. There may be music that you personally don’t like, but if you don’t like it, don’t listen to it and shut the fuck up!”