Charli xcx made her only UK festival appearance this summer at Reading and Leeds, delivering a not-quite-headline slot that mixed new album tracks with a speed run of Brat's biggest hits. The show followed a rowdy set from grime artist Skepta and came a year after her pyrotechnic Glastonbury performance, with her sunglasses remaining glued on throughout.
A hard reset in Charli's pop factory
In the past 14 months, Charli's output has undergone a significant shift. She has released two albums: a gothic soundtrack to Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Wuthering Heights, and last month's high-concept Music, Fashion, Film, an album of raw, glitching micro-rock with lacerating lyrics about shopping, egotism and mortality. She has also launched an acting career, thrown a celebrity wedding, and rehearsed her biggest, most vertiginous show to date.
Most of the new album was aired, starting with mission statement single Rock Music – a hard pivot away from Brat's all-night rave energy, with lyrics about self-destruction: “I'm really banging my head / I'm really hurting my neck / The nerve damage is real.” Backed by a live band, Charli rattled through Yeah and shopaholic reckoning Card Declined, joined by a cast of dancer-slash-models on a three-storey scaffolding set.
Outfits and a curated mood board
Her outfit rotation paid homage to the late '00s – glittery blazer over push-up bra and fishnets; ripped T-shirt dress with low-slung belt – with video screens stuck on the same monochrome palette as the album's black-and-white cover, featuring John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese. Cale's disembodied voice heralded a tense rendition of their duet, House. The current pop era is essentially a cosmic battle between her ego and her vulnerabilities.
The crowd saved their energy for a speed run of Brat's hits, including Von Dutch and Guess, where knickers fell from the sky. There wasn't much time for her deep catalogue, but she satisfied the hardcore – like the young man next to me who saw the Brat tour 24 times – with Track 10, a shirt-tearing favourite from 2017's Pop 2.
Closing with a morbid flourish
The show ended with new songs, including the arch “B side” Playboy Bunny, sung on one note: “All my music sounds the same / Well, that's because I made it”. Charli closed with Nothing Lasts Forever, a morbid reflection on “the crushing highs and lows of ego”, which faded out with director David Cronenberg's voice on a loop – “They are dead, they are gone / Nothing lasts for ever” – as Charli and her dancers stood rigid, staring into the distance. No stage banter, no compromise – just an absolute commitment to the bit. A set from Fontaines D.C. was still to come, but Charli made it tricky for the headliners to follow her closing flourish.
