Shania Twain’s 1997 hit, “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” has risen to the ranks of timeless pop anthems. Despite a long-term battle with Lyme Disease wreaking havoc on Shania’s voice, her awe-striking performance at the main stage of Glastonbury 2024 epitomizes Shania’s true power as a hitmaker and pop icon on her road to recovery, transcending every battle with respectable strength.
The Canadian country singer took to the Pyramid stage with an almost-all female band and, after a 14-song set including hits “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Come On Over,” closed her show with the indomitable hen-night anthem, “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”
Like swathes of Glastonbury performers this year, Shania’s set was tainted with sound issues, leading ex-popstar Coleen Nolan (of all people) to rush to Shania’s defense on daytime TV chat show, Loose Women, commenting: “I was watching Shania thinking she is having major issues as she was constantly pulling the ear piece out and putting it back in […] I could tell she couldn’t hear, as she wasn’t in tune on some of it. But again, I thought, at least she’s proving that it’s live!”
Thankfully, by the time Shania’s set-closing hit rolled around, most of the sound issues had been sorted. But Shania’s vocal abilities were criticized for having clearly diminished since the ‘90s, despite her still having a better voice than most of us watching at home. Her verses were flawless, but Shania’s pre-chorus and chorus lines were cast in a monotonous, mid-range harmony, rather than nailing the hit’s iconic melodies.
Only two years prior, Shania Twain opened up about her vocal issues in her documentary, “Not Just A Girl,” admitting she’d contracted Lyme disease in 2003 after being bitten by a tick whilst horseback riding. The infectious disease damaged her vocal cords and hugely affected Shania’s ability to perform on stage.
Shania admitted in her documentary, “My voice was never the same again. I thought I’d lost my voice forever. I thought that was it; I would never, ever sing again […] There were seven years where I could not, for example, yell out for my dog. My voice would just cut out in certain places.”
Her symptoms crept deeper than simply affecting her voice. She added, “My symptoms were quite scary because before I was diagnosed, I was on stage very dizzy. I was losing my balance. I was afraid I was going to fall off the stage. I was having these very, very, very millisecond blackouts, but regularly, every minute or every 30 seconds.
“It was just a very unfortunate, ironic problem since I’m a singer, but I feel so grateful and so lucky that it didn’t attack somewhere else because it’s so debilitating.” Lyme disease is known to affect the joints, heart, and nervous system if left untreated.
Shania (now 58 years old) was forced to take a 15-year break from music to recover. After undergoing open-throat surgery in 2018 and re-learning how to sing, Shania’s performance at Glastonbury ‘24 embodies strength and passion like no other. She wholesomely admitted, “I have a different voice now but I own it. I love my voice now.”
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