As all the teenage souls crawled themselves into the packed venue, I was a little surprised to say the least that they’d left the first act to come on stage and hour and a half after the doors had opened. I mean most these kids couldn’t even legally drink here, so they had to find some distraction in their selfies and tweets. After the long and anticipated wait, the first act finally came on stage.
CuckooLander was somewhat a mix between an ethereal, soothing sound and a deep Kate Bush-esq vibe. From the sidelines most of what I could see was of her drummer so powerful and energetic, allowing all the beats he was creating to take over his whole body. Mixed with CuckooLander’s delicate but loud voice, it was magic. It drew the crowd into a spectacular start to the night. I guess it was well worth the wait at this point. Her steady bass face as she sang was definitely impressive; she provided the backbone and the soul of her music, which we all lapped up.
As the set came to a close, we all stood there watching, as the venue team started unveiling the shimmering boxed white speakers, and fix up the lights. The room went dark as “Fancy” featuring our one and only backgrounded.. then with a shimmer her band came onto the stage dressed as glittering angels, wings and all. The room faded to pink lights and the woman of the evening jumped onto the stage to sing to the first song of her album, “F**k you, SUCKER” she screamed as everyone pressed into the air their middle fingers. This wasn’t going to be a PG-13 gig despite the parents which surrounded the lost teenage souls. Throughout the set, Britain’s pop princess went onto then do some familiar tracks like “I Love It” by Icona Pop on which she featured on, “You – Ha Ha Ha”, “Stay Away” and “Black Roses” which seemingly none of the 14 year olds knew the lyrics to.
Pretty much the entire gig was most the songs from her new album, “Sucker”. I loved how she decided to whack out an inflatable guitar during “Breaking Up”, it just added to her bubbly character as he bopped up and down the stage. She definitely put on a performance, twerking her way through every song, including her newest “Famous” – just the energy she flinged on the stage. By the time “Need Ur Love” came, she dragged her support act CuckooLander to duet with her, which was just a beautiful mix of two powerful voices. Her inner feminist really got the crowd going with “Body Of My Own” teaching every girl and boy in the room a lesson or two. After a few more singles, including my personal favourite “London Queen”, our very own London Queen wooshed off stage. Of course this wasn’t the end. As the audience carried on screaming “Charli! Charli! Charli..!” her and her band went on to encore with “Boom Clap”, the perfect end for us all to clap for being in her presence. You go girl.
By Gabriella Ahmed
Comments