Not a single seat is vacant in New York’s legendary Madison Square Garden. ‘Brat’ summer might be over, but the sardine-packed arena is still speckled with hints of its representative colour, lime green. Tonight, Miss 365 party girl herself Charli XCX and Troye Sivan are taking over the city that never sleeps with their back-to-back joint headlining show as part of their US-only ‘Sweat’ tour, and NYC is showing up accordingly.
As the lights dim to signal the start of this cultural moment, a montage of XCX and Sivan plays on the two big screens, and a slow, robotic voice says: “When I go to the club, I want to hear those club classics.” Moments later, as Sivan’s backup dancers emerge on stage, the pop boy of the hour has one question he needs answering. “New York City, oh my god, are you ready to fucking sweat?” he asks before kicking the night off with a vivacious performance of ‘Got Me Started’ featuring his viral dance moves and sensual mic positioning, driving the whole arena crazy.
After Sivan runs through the pulsing ‘What’s The Time Where You Are?’ and ‘My My My’, providing a masterclass in electrifying stage presence, a plethora of strobes begin flickering across the venue. A green curtain falls from MSG’s ceiling, forming a box around the end of the stage, ‘Brat’ printed on each side. The lime cube doesn’t stay up for long, dropping to the floor to reveal XCX in its middle, from where she breaks into the ‘365’ remix with Easyfun and Shygirl, the latter of whom joins her onstage as both artists dance wildly along to the track like they’re in the club rather than on stage at MSG.
XCX and Sivan spend the night seamlessly transitioning from each other’s acts. The latter impressively belts out the likes of ‘One Of Your Girls’ and ‘Rager Teenager!’, and dances through his exquisite choreography with the same magnetic pull of some of the pop icons who’ve come before him, like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga.
Witnessing two stars at the top of their game would be more than enough of a present, but tonight, the two stars come bearing yet more gifts for the sold-out crowd. As the beginning of Spears’ ‘Everytime’ starts playing, Addison Rae appears to perform her latest viral track ‘Diet Pepsi’ with XCX and Sivan assisting her on vocals. After, she and XCX take things up a notch for a rowdy rendition of their ‘Von Dutch’ remix.