SWG3 (Galvanisers), GlasgowCharli XCX knows how to party, replacing the galaxy of star collaborators on new album Charli with her own vocals and raging through pop-vulnerable hits
‘Tonight is gonna be the best night of your life! It’s Charli baby, and I’m gonna take you to heaven.” Charli XCX knows how to throw a party, and this one – the first night of a sold-out
UK tour – has it all. Rainbow-coloured strobes, mountains of smoke, surprise guests and, at the centre of the chaos, Charlotte Aitchison in a scarlet, matador-inspired two-piece, punching the air like pop’s own Power Ranger. Her opening words may read like hyperbole, but her most feverish Angels queued all day for a chance to meet her, and even the more casual fans at the back of SWG3’s largest room grab each other in frenzied delight when her biggest songs hit.
The tour, the lights, the costume changes are all in honour of her newly released third album, Charli – an expansive follow-up to the playful, challenging mixtapes she dropped in 2017. In Charli-world, there isn’t much difference to split between a tape or an album, and the new record still feels like a frenetic mood board, but with a surprisingly confrontational vulnerability. The first hint of that, tonight, is found in Gone – an antisocial anthem written with Christine and the Queens’ Chris. Charli’s queasy, lonely chorus, “I feel so unstable, fucking hate these people”, burns up the room, turning each party-goer’s party inside out.