More about: Clairo

Last year, US indie pop act Clairo released her second album, Sling. Featuring introspective, sensitive song-writing, whispery vocals, and charmingly fussy production from Jack Antonoff, the record was a much quieter affair than her debut. At times, you feel like you’re in her living room and she’s singing right to you. It was one of my album highlights of 2021, but I can’t have been the only fan wondering how she might translate these songs to live shows in large venues.

Earlier this year, Gigwise sent me to review Leisure Festival in Margate, where Clairo was set to be performing. Unfortunately, she contracted COVID the day before and was forced to pull out. Then at the end of last month, towards the end of the rescheduled last leg of her European tour, illness meant she walked off stage in Bristol and had to cancel her subsequent show in Glasgow. 

All of this left me feeling nervous about her 4th October show at O2 Academy Brixton. I was worried I might have come to see a visibly poorly artist struggle through the final show of her tour, playing songs that weren’t made to be played in a room this big anyway. And I’m so thrilled that these fears were ultimately unfounded. 

When the sickly singer-songwriter takes to the stage, she looks like a competition winner. Clad in a pair of baggy jeans and what looks like her dad’s suit jacket, she sits unimposingly at a Rhodes piano, with a glass of red wine sitting precariously on top. On the stage are several scruffy looking rugs as well as what looks like cheap IKEA lamps placed in strategic positions. I get the same feeling I had when listening to the album: that I’m in her living room. 

Just three songs in, things grind to a halt so that Clairo can flag down medical help for a member of the audience, and this happens again repeatedly across the course of the show. “Drink water, guys!” she keeps saying. Looking at the demographic make-up of the crowd, I half-expect her to follow it up with “And take your Sertraline!” 

I text a friend, saying that I feel that people passing out has become an increasing and worrying pattern at gigs of late. My friend replies “Global warming”. Then I hear the person next to me suggest that the problem is down to the O2 Brixton overselling its shows. I hate to sound like a climate change denier, but this does feel like a more likely cause. 

That said, while you might be able to criticise the venue from a health and safety standpoint, you’d struggle to say anything about the sound quality. I’ve been to a number of gigs at the O2 Brixton this year – from LCD Soundsystem to Phoebe Bridgers – and the clarity of the sound really can vary, but on this occasion it’s crystal clear, allowing the audience to bask in the songs without straining to hear the musicians properly. 

"Deliciously precise and unwaveringly confident..."

Clairo’s band, who she thanks countless times during the show, includes drums, guitars, keys, bass, and two people capable of playing the saxophone. The main saxophonist really adds something to the sound, enhancing the woodwind parts from the songs on Sling and adding new sax solos to the songs from the first album. The drummer also makes a big impression, particularly on the Sling songs, where they expand massively on Antonoff’s botched-together albeit charming studio performances. 

As for the vocals, I’m blown away. Clairo performance is deliciously precise and she’s unwaveringly confident – I’d put her second only to the virtuosic Laura Marling in terms of the best live vocalists I’ve seen in the last 12 months. 

As the show goes on, she also reveals herself to be one of the most charismatic frontpeople I’ve seen on stage in recent times. During the upbeat numbers she’s playful, clumsily dancing around the stage and encouraging the audience to do the same. And during the ballads, she more than successfully recreates the intimacy from the studio recordings. Before she plays ‘Blouse’, she asks the audience to put their phones away for the duration of the song, and most in the crowd abide. It’s the highlight of the show. 

Once ‘Blouse’ comes to an end, everybody gets their phones out again and I see the person sitting in front of me try to use Shazam to determine what song is now being played. When Shazam (obviously) doesn’t work, she then opens Spotify and cycles through Clairo’s songs, holding the phone up to her ear. It’s painful to watch, and I find myself wishing the mobile phone ban had never been lifted.

At the end of the show, Clairo expresses relief that the tour was over, describing it as “excruciating” to get through. She and her band take a celebratory selfie and they all seem glad it’s over. But until that point, you wouldn’t have known – the show was a triumph from start to finish. 

See the view from the pit, captured by Kyleen Hengelhaupt:

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More about: Clairo