The line for the men’s room at the Kia Forum for Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s show Tuesday night was suspiciously long. Inside, the reason became clear: Most of the women were there, wearing Charlie’s lime-green shade from her summer LP, “Brat.”
“This is the only show where gender doesn’t matter,” one woman said to her friend, laughing as she wore a mesh crop top that was a little more fuzzy than the Juul cloud that followed her.
She was right. The release of Charli’s album in June heralded the arrival of Brat Summer, the desperation season of 2024 much known for having a good time despite global chaos. And for a minute or two, this was the hallmark of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
Charli XCX, who did not allow The Times to film her Forum show, strikes a dramatic pose during an earlier stop on her tour.
(Henry Redcliffe)
But how can an artist like Charli keep that flame alive when presidential hopefuls stop using her line?
The smart, ambitious, hardcore electro-pop artist finally has the fame she’s sought for nearly two decades. Now, she has to make sure music stays important for the next 20 years.
Tuesday’s two-night opener showed the way forward. Charlie – one of the most self-aware songwriters of our time – is not only a pop star but also an artist deeply attuned to the fame machine and its joys and fears. The only way to cope is to bring a lot of friends with you.
This extensive tour with Sivan – an Aussie with a seductive falsetto who delved into raging house music last year on “Something to Give Each Other” – was booked long before Charli ascended to the A-list over the summer. Sivan is convincing and even more interesting now that his music sounds like it belongs in the bathrooms of the Castro District.
The format of this tour, with three or four songs from each artist before switching in the same set, demonstrated Charlie’s generosity and excitement for collaboration. This flexibility and camaraderie will be what sustains it.
The evening began with a short set from British singer, DJ and label owner Shygirl with an appropriate mix of pheromone-infused electronics that shocks Future. Her album “Nymph” deserves to be on the scene, and what a joy to see her finding it.
Then Sivan took up the baton, with powerful odes to lustful desires like “What Time Are You In?” And “honey”. Sivan has come a long way from the blue-eyed seraph with impossible cheekbones he embodied early in his career, and on club songs like “Silly” and “Rush,” he dances like someone who’s seen the scope of humanity. Prospect in Berlin fetish dungeon.
Troye Sivan performs during his tour with Charli XCX.
(Henry Redcliffe)
It also gave him space to take real chances, like the side-cut “One of Your Girls”: “Call me if you ever feel lonely / I’ll be like one of your girls or your guys / Say what you want I want, and I’ll keep it a secret.”
Charli, for her part, is no longer a secret to pop girls and gays. She was a black-curled dervish in one of L.A.’s largest theaters, licking the glass stage floor while flashing her underwear to the cameras once the playful “Guess” collaboration with Billie Eilish began (no Eilish was there in person on Tuesday, sadly).
Charlie’s stage setup was simple – no dancers, no band, just Charlotte Aitchison alone on some scaffolding and a large LED stage. She seemed determined to strip her fame of all artifice while still claiming her pleasures.
Seeing and hearing Brat was a vivid reminder of just how smart this record was, frantically assessing her place in the pop firmament on “Sympathy Is a Knife,” and acknowledging the jealousy and insecurity of public femininity on “Girl, So Confusing.” With one of the hardest tricks in pop music, it’s an album about how weird it is to be a pop star, made vivid and relatable in the details.
While Charli moved back and forth between club frontmen like “Von Dutch” and “365,” she worked in older material like “Vroom Vroom” and tracks like “Speed Drive” from “Barbie” to illustrate that this composer’s ambition, ambition, and dedication were there. always.
Hovering over the group in spirit was Sophie, Charlie’s late collaborator, a producer who loves pop music’s emotional range while dissatisfied with its clichés. Kesha was there for her, reclaiming “Tik Tok” as a founding document of Charli’s anarchic aesthetic and well-polished vocals. When Charli nodded to her after-hours Boiler Room DJ triumphantly belting out “365” or hitting the floor to sing “Blame It on Your Love,” she changed what was possible for an artist of this level of fame.
Judging by the forum crowd covered in colorful graffiti, Pratt Summer may persist as Gen Z’s own Margaritaville character, an ageless mindset about decadence and rebellion. Charlie finally got what she wanted but knows she has to move on.