Charli XCX and the fight to save club culture
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Charli XCX is performing in arenas this week, but started her career sneaking to raves underage
Don’t put away your strappy top and bic lighter just yet – Charli XCX’s Brat arena tour has just landed in the UK.
Kicking off in Manchester on Wednesday, the gigs will be hoping to keep the mania of Brat summer alive well into the winter months.
But could the mega tour give the UK’s club scene the boost it desperately needs?
“The clubbing landscape right now, I would say honestly it’s quite terrifying,” London DJ Moxie tells BBC Newsbeat.
More than 100 music venues in the UK stopped putting on live music last year according to the Music Venue’s Trust – with more than half of those fully closing.
“We rely on a lot of students and a lot of students are not going out,” Moxie says.
“They’re prioritising staying in because they can’t quite afford to go out.
“Everything has gone up and that’s had such a knock on effect on venues.”
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DJ Moxie is worried about the state of clubbing venues in the UK
The venues that are closing or struggling to stay open are the types of places where Charli XCX honed her craft.
Charli’s spoken before about getting her parents to take her to raves when she was a teenager and before she was selling out arenas, she was working warehouse gigs.
“She has been around for such a long time and she used to go out – I would be at raves that she was at when she was like 15,” says Moxie.
“She is opening up the conversation about the sorts of places that have inspired her.”
And as those places start to disappear, Moxi’s hopeful that Charli’s fanbase will discover a love of club music that has been on the wane.
“Especially if someone like Charli XCX is telling them: ‘This is where I’ve come from, the clubs have made me, it’s part of my DNA’.”
It’s not just Charli bringing club music to the mainstream either – Fred Again headlined Reading and Leeds festival over the summer and Peggy Gou’s had a string of sold out shows.
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Brat is up for a number of awards, including the Mercury Prize
Brat is Charli’s sixth album and it’s up for an armful of awards including three Grammys and the Mercury Prize.
Hot on its heels was the remix album, Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat, and an arena tour.
And for top artists headlining arenas, fans are used to paying above the odds.
But at Charli’s show in Manchester on Wednesday, friends Niamh and Freya say they were “really surprised” to only pay £40 each to see Charli XCX.
“We thought it would be more expensive,” they say.
“It wasn’t bad at all – it was really affordable.”
Compare that to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour where, on average, fans spent £206 on a ticket.
Regular standing tickets for Beyoncé Renaissance shows cost up to £410 and tickets for Billie Eilish’s upcoming UK dates could set you back up to £398.
More than half of people in the UK have said high prices have stopped them going to gigs in the last five years.
For people under 34, two thirds of them have said that’s meant they’ve reduced the number they go to.
Niamh (right) dyed her hair green in a nod to the Brat album cover
Tasha and Lucas also spent £40 on their tickets and are hoping Charli XCX will give a boost to the clubbing scene.
They travelled from Chester where Lucas says “there’s not a huge club scene” but they often go to other towns and cities to support artists and venues.
Tasha says they’ve always enjoyed the club scene and are excited Charli’s brought it more into the mainstream.
“She’s the first in our first generation to make that crossover,” she says.
“She’s breaking boundaries,” adds Lucas.
Other fans who spoke to Newsbeat at the gig told us they were new to clubbing and Charli’s music had brought them into the scene.
“Party culture died out a bit,” says fan Amara. “I hope this revives it.”
Tasha and Lucas love clubbing but say the scene in their hometown is only small
Music journalist and critic Shaad D’Souza tells Newsbeat he “has to hope and pray” that lots of Charli’s fans are as excited as Amara about getting into clubbing and going out.
He’s particularly excited about what Brat could mean for the future of the genre – as well as people going out dancing and supporting venues.
“It’s refreshing that someone’s going to the underground for new sounds,” he says.
“Because what we see a lot lately is pop musicians’ direct reference points are the history of pop.”
He points to Tate McRae throwing back to Britney Spears as an example, compared to artists like Madonna and Prince taking inspiration from different styles outside of pop in previous decades and bringing them into the mainstream.
“I think that’s what Charli is doing here and I think that’s something that’s been missing,” Shaad says.
“We lose something when pop references itself.”
As for what the Brat tour can do for the clubbing scene, Shaad believes that, while there’s a growing market for big ticket events like festivals and the Eras tour, huge gigs can happily co-exist with a smaller club scene.
“I don’t think the big pop tour is eating the small club landscape,” he says.
“What’s closing clubs near me is property development and council regulations – no one pop star is not responsible for clubs closing.”
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