An outburst of cheers broke out in Viejas Arena when Troye Sivan finally took the stage to the tune of the familiar yet iconic melodic motif of his hit single “Got Me Started”. As its title suggests, this song kicked off Troye Sivan and Charli XCX’s San Diego stop for their co-headliner tour: SWEAT. For nearly two hours, this duo artfully led a night full of dancing, jumping, and singing, successfully upscaling the energetic and grungy ambiance of the club to a sold-out arena show.
Aside from a few on-stage interactions and collaborative songs, Troye and Charli alternated throughout the night, with each performing around two to three songs before passing the microphone to the other. This continuous switching made for almost a back-and-forth musical dialogue type of concert experience, which not only kept the experience entertaining but also helped to maintain energy and momentum for the duration of the show.
In addition to “Got Me Started”, Troye performed other hits from his most recent album Something to Give Each Other, including the lustful long-distance tune “What’s The Time Where You Are” and the euphoric dance-pop single “Honey”. Amidst this upbeat and electronic sound, Troye also performed songs from his 2018 album Bloom, such as “My My My!” and “Dance To This”. Despite the rather overstimulating nature of the rest of the show, these songs felt oddly intimate. Hearing some of his earlier releases in a packed arena reminded me of how far Troye has come and just how much he has progressed as a musical artist. For those who have been fans since his YouTube days, those songs were for you!
Yet, my personal standouts from him still had to be lead singles “One Of Your Girls” and “Rush”. No other songs could match the genuine thrill that consumed both me and the crowd during those performances. For “One Of Your Girls”, Troye recreated some scenes from the music video on-stage, although without Ross Lynch this time around. With the acting and dancing, the performance was visually captivating, and you couldn’t help but sing along and enjoy Troye’s stage presence. Then, with a flashing display of lights, Troye ended his individual set with “Rush”. Accompanied by his group of dancers, who Charli XCX referred to as “Troye’s sexy backup dancers” for the entire night, Troye and company lit up the stage performing the iconic choreography as seen in its music video. At this point, you could look around the arena and see everyone jumping with their hands in the air. But that’s just the energy that was needed.
On Charli’s end, Brat needs no introduction. It was arguably the biggest pop release this year and its cultural impact was unmatched. To a sea of lime-green clothes imprinted with blurry Arial Narrow lettering, Charli XCX performed Brat hits such as the bold and boisterous “Club classics”, the orchestral yet heavy-hitting “Everything is romantic”, and also worked it out on the remix live with “Girl, so confusing featuring lorde”. Shygirl, the opening act of the tour, was also brought out to perform her and Charli’s newly released remix of “365” together. But it wasn’t all Brat that night, as she included older hits like the almost celestial-sounding “Track 10” from her 2017 mixtape Pop 2 and the punchy SOPHIE-produced “Vroom Vroom”.
It is difficult to single out a few standouts in a setlist of hits, but her performances of “Sympathy is a knife” and “Spring breakers” were my personal favorites from Charli from the night. The melody in the chorus of “Sympathy is a knife” is addicting and collectively singing along with an arena full of people was healing, in a sense. On top of this, hearing Charli vent about her insecurities and jealousy was something I connected with and added to the moment for me. “Spring breakers” similarly shined and I would argue this song is quintessentially Brat. Produced by A.G. Cook and sprinkled with Britney Spears samples, this confident tune captures the essence of being unapologetically outspoken and expressive. Charli even dedicated this performance to all the “crazy girls” in the audience, cementing this moment as one of the more memorable performances of the evening.
To close their show, Charli and Troye joined forces for a performance of their most recent collaboration “Talk talk”. As they strutted along the stage and the crowd collectively jumped to the beat of the song, I found myself taking in the show I just witnessed. Having supported both of their journeys for a few years now, seeing the grand production and national success of SWEAT was inspiring. Leaving Viejas Arena that night, I felt content knowing that the electronic and dance music scene would be in good hands with Charli and Troye at the helm.
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