Eventim Apollo, London
Playing material from her wonderful 2024 album Charm against lavish, elegant staging, the US artist has ushered in a confident new era

Charm, the third album from 26-year-old US singer-songwriter Clairo, was one of last year’s best: 1970s-skewing pop-soul where you could almost sense the warmth of the era’s wood, velvet and corduroy. Played live on this sold-out tour, the lounge-lizard feeling intensifies as her band perform on what looks like an epically proportioned sofa, backed by an elegantly glinting feature wall.

Clairo sweeps around in front of this bold interior decoration with a carefree second-mimosa energy, saying that she and her band are in “such high spirits” and admiring her “crazy” teen and twentysomething audience. Truth be told, this seated crowd, given to carefully filming each song on phones or fashionably ancient digital cameras and sometimes both, isn’t exactly wild. But giddy admiration gushes from them, and there’s a big, fierce singalong for early single Bags, particularly on its clever line about a battle of wits between lovers: “Can you see me using everything to hold back?”