I WAS CHARMED BY CLAIRO...
Playing the wood-toned and flirtatious whimsy of her 2024 record, Charm, Clairo set a relaxingly sensual mood for fans, bringing an early yet endearing spring warmth to London along with her.
I've caught the Charm tour thrice in the last year, with two of the shows here in London. And each night I saw twenty-six-year-old Claire Cottrill and her band of similarly aged musicians take the smooth velvet green stage, the more her 70s pop Charm won me over.
Clairo's stage presence on this tour was casually confident, emanating the same smoothness her new record does. She cheerfully twirled and shimmied between saxophone bridges, danced and drank as her band unraveled her classic tunes through a fuller sound, and stood powerfully afront the mic as she sang to the crowd of thousands. Her band spread loungingly, fitting into the casual adult evening aesthetic the singer aims to bring through her set design: nothing more than friends spending the night together. It created a relaxed atmosphere that swept over the young crowd of swooning fans waiting to be charmed by Clairo herself, screaming with glee as she called out and elongated, "How we feeling London?"
"You guys seem really familiar with my third album, Charm..."
Charm was a means of reinvention for the young indie-pop icon: the record delivers an enigmatic sense of soul and romantic lavishness that comes with age, almost leaving her yearnful bedroom ballads to be nothing more than a teenage dream. However, Clairo and her quintet were able to translate dreams into a live reality, blissfully blending and bending indie-era bangers like 4ever and Bags into the more current, sophisticated tones of her work.
The band's movements flowed freely: each member matched the ever-building grooves laid atop each other, building and easing tension with each motion, with each wind instrument and drum tap bringing a new sense of depth and tenderness to each song, shimmering around Clairo's airy, light voice, the music waltzing across the stage hand in hand with her. Their instrumentation matched her emotions, following her thoughts and feelings as she pranced around, whether that be the low rumble of the saxophone on the verses in North, the emotional breakdown in Partridge, or the breakbeats creating new dance grooves on her subtle summer hit Amoeba; everything communicated with ease, and transformed her catalog with a breath of fresh air, something that came with the focused sounds of her recent record.
With each song came quirky quips and roaring cheers from a crowd who grew up alongside Clairo, watching her transform from her Pretty Girl bedroom now to the grand stage. There was a personal sense of pride seeing her up there handling the space so well; Clairo's presence has always felt so sheltered, almost afraid of her fame and fandom. But on this new tour, she's more confident than ever, even willing to play tracks she swore off like the closer Sofia, or the previously unplayed Steeeam.
Clairo not only charmed her audience, but she charmed herself, playing into her newfound confidence that she promoted alongside the album. Her new sense of self helped redefine her catalog, fitting it for a live space with more power and beauty than expected.