Charli XCX, Heaven, London review • DIY Magazine

Anybody walking unawares around the Charing Cross area at around 10pm last night would have been in for a bit of a fright ahead of Halloween. A fairly regular example of Thursday evening descended into barely-contained chaos in about a second flat. It began with a pop. Then another three. Then twenty, forty, seventy balloons all stamped on at the same time like firecrackers. Chased by the never-ending frenzy of popping echoing devilishly after them, hordes of bellowing teenagers suddenly came spilling out of an underground railway arch, knocking past stunned commuters, clutching onto rescued balloons and bright pink tour posters. Luckily there’s a decent enough explanation for all this tomfoolery that doesn’t involve any dark magic. Charli XCX has unleashed the Angels from London’s Heaven.

“Now we’re coming up the stairs, we’re acting shameless, so outrageous,” sings Charli prior to all this hoo-ha, on-stage and flanked by an all-girl band and a diamante tiara. ‘Famous’ might be a song from her postponed new album ‘Sucker’, but it hardly shows. The crowd has quickly mastered the art of bellowing out the vocal lines, and Charli XCX is delighted, patrolling the front of the stage in her cheerleader costume. Bratty, audacious and demanding every last gram of pure pop energy out of every melody line, Charli’s brought along a deliberately pastichey melting pot of yé-yé, Nineties girl-power pop, and straight up punk. Brand new ‘I Need Your Love’ – all faux-innocent music box chimes and coy, high-pitched choruses – hits on the balance that Charli XCX is increasingly perfecting. Pop, when done properly, haughtily toes the line between darkness and frivolity like a naughty in-joke embedded in a Disney film. ‘Caught in the Middle’, another song from ‘Sucker’, is another such example.

Slight glimpses of a more subdued Charli might return during older songs like ‘Black Roses’, but parading towards her guitar players, throwing back her crimped hair and declaring “you’re turning me on, you’re turning me off,” there’s little hint of pastel-hued safe-playing left. ‘Break The Rules’ is the starting gun for an absolutely ludicrous amount of balloons, and they pour down from the ceiling like party invites fluttering down an American high school stairwell in a culty teen movie. The encore obviously starts with ‘Fancy’ – what else - but this is far from the preened, chart-ready, Iggy Azalea led version. Charli XCX’s own ‘Fancy’ tonight, in fact, would probably get censored from the radio anyway, because she’s taken the liberty of inserting a dance breakdown during which she repeatedly shouts the word “pussy”. With a ‘Boom Clap’, it’s all over. The balloon grabbing begins, and the Angels spill outside, many of them singing ‘Boom Clap’ well after the gig ends and the PA goes off. Forget industry-pressed air fix assembly artists with no real clout, Charli XCX has smashed out of the mould that held her back before. She’s shameless, outrageous, and she’s probably going to get a lot more famous once ‘Sucker’ eventually drops.