Matt Maltese, an English artist best known for his TikTok viral hit “As The World Caves In,” performed at 1:15 p.m. at the T-Mobile stage on Thursday.
Maltese played his entire set accompanying himself on piano, making him a stand-out performer.
He opened his set with “You Deserve an Oscar,” a beautiful track that highlighted his superb vocals.
After, Maltese addressed the crowd and his thankfulness to be at Lollapalooza.
“Wow, there’s a lot of you, thank you,” Maltese said. “I got to leave miserable Britain weather for this.”
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Maltese’s set was quite calming, with his mellow, Beatles-esque sounding music complimenting his gentle demeanor.
Maltese joked about how a flight attendant said he looked like John Lennon, and admitted that his haircut made him look very British.
Opening his final song, “As The World Caves In,” Maltese played a few seconds of the now-iconic “Succession” theme song, before properly launching into the song.
As the song began, the crowd came to life, singing along as Maltese gave an impressive performance of his most popular hit.
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The Daily Illini sat down with Maltese for a brief chat. This interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
DI: How was the set?
Maltese: It was really lovely, yeah. I didn’t know what to expect, I guess you don’t really know what to expect at most festivals, but it was just a very lovely crowd. There were a lot more people than I maybe thought would be there, it was nice.
DI: “As The World Caves In” is your biggest song, I’d love to hear the story behind it.
Maltese: Well, it was a kind of over-the-top love song that was imagining the love tryst between two people blowing up the world. And at the time, the sort of worst two people around were Theresa May and Donald Trump, who had the power to blow up the world. So it was kind of like a sort of strange love song between two tyrants.
DI: What does the future hold? What do you have coming up?
Maltese: I have some more music soon. I can’t say with certainty how soon. And I definitely want to come back and play some shows.
