Charli xcx closed her only UK festival appearance this summer with a set that traded Brat-era rave energy for a grandiose, ego-driven spectacle, complete with a live band, a three-storey scaffolding set, and a monochrome visual palette. The performance at Reading Festival, following a rowdy set from grime artist Skepta, was a not-quite-headline slot that echoed her pyrotechnic Glastonbury farewell to the puke-green reign of Brat last year.
A Hard Reset of Charli's Pop Factory
In the past 14 months, Charli xcx has undergone a significant artistic transformation. She 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 guitars shredded into Tetris-like pieces and 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.
The set opened with the mission statement single Rock Music, a hard pivot away from Brat's all-night rave energy and an ode to her on-stage urge to self-destruct, with lyrics like “I’m really banging my head / I’m really hurting my neck / The nerve damage is real.” Backed by a live band featuring underfed, skinny-trousered men who ruled stages circa 2006, Charli rattled through Yeah, her pocket-sized take on Song 2, and Card Declined, a shopaholic reckoning joined by a huge cast of dancer-slash-models prowling the scaffolding set.
Daring Homage to the Late '00s
Charli's outfit rotation was another daring homage to the late '00s, featuring a glittery blazer over push-up bra and fishnets, and a ripped T-shirt dress with a low-slung belt. The mood board was tightly curated, with video screens stuck on the same monochrome palette as every outfit and image from this era, including the album's black-and-white cover featuring John Cale, Marc Jacobs, and Martin Scorsese. John Cale's disembodied voice heralded a tense rendition of their claustrophobic duet, House. The performance was pretentious, but as the review notes, Nietzsche would have got on board with it – a cosmic battle between her ego and her vulnerabilities, watched over by serious Big Dick Energy.
Charli's crowd were less debauched than her “365 party girl” reputation suggests, but they saved their energy for a speed run of Brat's biggest hits, including Von Dutch and Guess, where knickers fell from the sky like elasticated manna. There wasn't much time to dig into her deep catalogue of future-facing pop, but she satisfied the hardcore – like the young man next to the reviewer who saw the Brat tour 24 times – with Track 10, a shirt-tearing favourite from 2017's Pop 2.
Closing Flourish and Absolute Commitment
The end of the show circled back to new songs, including the arch “B side” Playboy Bunny, sung on one note like a coquettish Joey Ramone: “All my music sounds the same / Well, that's because I made it”. With a set from Fontaines D.C. still to come, Charli made it tricky for the headliners to follow her closing flourish on Nothing Lasts Forever, a morbid reflection on “the crushing highs and lows of ego”. The song faded out with director David Cronenberg's voice on a loop, reminding us of the fate of even the greatest artists – “They are dead, they are gone / Nothing lasts for ever” – as Charli and her dancers stood rigid, staring into the distance. There was no stage banter, no compromise – just an absolute commitment to the bit.
