It’s hard not to take it with a grain of salt when a pop star humors a crowd. But when Troye Sivan said to the legions that packed Climate Pledge Arena last night that he felt lucky to conclude his and Charli XCX’s 21-date-long Sweat Tour with the “best f——g crowd” they’d seen so far, it was easy to believe him. It was the kind of concert pop stars ought to aspire to, not necessarily in terms of production — sets were pared down to a couple of screens and a handful of construction-site-like platforms, with occasional props like a silk silver-sheeted bed or a chair — but vigorously maintained energy.  

The audience in the faux fog-choked room didn’t so much as sing but shout nearly every word, with some lyrics — “Let’s ride!,” from Charli’s arena-shaking “Vroom Vroom”; “Face card/No cash, no credit,” from Sivan’s “One of Your Girls” — lent a few extra decibels. (I couldn’t totally tell amid the regularly eardrum-rupturing din of the room, but I wondered how much of this ostensibly mostly American crowd affected a British accent when singing along with the Essex-bred Charli.) Sivan and his cluster of strapping, nearly all-male dancers tirelessly slinked around the stage, the elegant choreography regularly sprinkled with cheeky suggestiveness. Authoritative, nearly-always-alone club queen Charli stomped and jumped around in black boots and rarely-taken-off sunglasses with the kind of lose-yourself-on-the-dancefloor euphoria that didn’t make it seem contrived when, during the unfortunately-not-in-Seattle Billie Eilish’s verse on the teasing “Guess” remix, Charli dramatically licked the stage’s see-through floor, a hilariously grotty tour tradition the cameras beneath it made sure to capture for posterity.

Read the full review at 425.