Across the U.S., teens are preparing for high school homecoming football games and dances. Last night at Madison Square Garden saw a homecoming of a different sort: New York teenagers (a.k.a. 27-31-year-olds) donned wraparound sunglasses and baby tees to dance out the final gasps of Brat Summer — Brautumn, if you will — at Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s Sweat Tour.
Brat Summer originally took root right here in New York. The months-long, frenzied phenomenon was foreshadowed in February with Charli’s elusive Boiler Room set at a warehouse in Bushwick, where the singer debuted the album’s first single, “Von Dutch.” In May, the infamous slime-green BRAT wall appeared in Greenpoint, followed by Charli’s surprise cameo at the Dare’s Le Bain DJ set. Once the album dropped in June, a swarm of fans dripped down in Brat attire filled Brooklyn Paramount to catch her first full live show in support of the release.
From that point forward, you’d be hard pressed to enter any hazy room or club in the city without hearing the bumpy crescendoing synths of “360” ringing out like an emergency alert system to the dancefloor. Lyrics from the record rapidly infiltrated the vernaculars of Internet-brained young adults: “I’m so Julia” = “It Girl.” “Girl, you walk like a bitch” = a massive compliment now, somehow. The word “Brat” evolved from a noun to an adjective, making appearances in your most normie friend’s “summer dump” Instagram captions, used to describe the most mundane of activities. (No, Susan, drinking coffee after 4 p.m. is not brat. Or what the hell, maybe it is. Who’s to say anymore?)
That said, does watching the Sweat Tour on a Monday evening, the second day of fall, feel sort of like being the last person at the party? You’d be valid to have some hesitations. But at last night’s show, Charli and Troye pulled out all the stops on a production that had even the most Brat-exhausted fans full-throttle bumpin’ that.
Troye kicked off the show with “Got Me Started,” flanked by synchronized dancers and sensual, body-rolling choreography. The two co-headliners kept the arena on the edge of their tabi’d toes all night, interweaving their sets and switching off every three songs or so. Whispers about potential surprise guests had begun percolating ahead of the show, and to the crowd’s screeching delight, Sweat’s NYC stop delivered. Screams filled MSG when TikToker-turned-pop-girl Addison Rae’s feathery silhouette appeared like an apparition while the wobbly synths of her recent hit “Diet Pepsi” started to play. Charli and Troye joined to contribute background vocals (“Diet Pepsi” ft. Troye Sivan when?), and Addison stayed long enough to kick her heels off, spin around barefoot, and shriek into the mic for A.G. Cook’s remix of “Von Dutch.” Some may say she’s just living that life.
The sound barrier in Madison Square Garden nearly broke halfway through the show, when Lorde appeared from below the stage to work it out on the remix with Charli IRL. The two girls with the same hair delivered a fiery duet of the oft-quoted and widely-discussed “Girl, So Confusing” –– and where the initial recording carries a mutually deferential tone, the live performance was a whole celebration, bold and unabashed, as the duo strutted down the catwalk perfectly in sync.
Each night on the Sweat Tour, a new “Apple” girl has appeared on the big screen to perform the TikTok-viral “Apple” dance. Kelley Heyer, the creator of the dance herself, was last night’s guest, leading the crowd through her choreography while wearing a bedazzled Brat miniskirt. “She made the fucking dance, bitch,” Charli screamed into the mic, and the party kept rolling.
Troye’s balmy, dance-pop sensibility and Charli’s adrenaline kept the emotions high and the energy sustained throughout the two-hour runtime. The co-headliners duetted their beloved track “1999” as the last song before both of their encores, where Charli played Pop 2 standout “Track 10” and the early-2010s classic “I Love It,” while Troye sang “Honey” and “Rush” (as an audience member waved around a cardboard cutout of a poppers bottle from across the arena). The pair closed the night with their recent bouncy “Talk Talk” remix. “The fucking icon, Charli XCX,” Troye said before the lights came up. “The fucking legend, Troye Sivan,” Charli tossed back — two pop visionaries giving each other their flowers, sweating and smiling big.
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan Sweat Tour Set List
“Got Me Started”
“What’s the Time Where You Are?”
“My My My!”
“365 remix with easyfun and shygirl“
“360”
“Von Dutch”
“In My Room”
“Dance To This”
“Rager Teenager!”
“Club Classics”
“Unlock It”
“Sympathy Is a Knife”
“Guess featuring Billie Eilish”
“Bloom”
“Spring Breakers”
“Diet Pepsi”
“Girl, So Confusing featuring Lorde”
“One of Your Girls”
“Everything Is Romantic”
“Speed Drive”
“Apple”
“Silly”
“You”
“STUD”
“365”
“Vroom Vroom”
“1999”
Encore:
“Track 10”
“I Love It”
“Honey”
“Rush”
“Talk Talk featuring Troye Sivan”
From Rolling Stone US
