The dichotomy of the Party Girl: Charli XCX at Lido festival
On Saturday 14th, in a sunny east London, it’s easy to spot who is going to the Charli XCX show and the answer is, seemingly, everyone. The paths to Victoria Park are a sea of lime green with empty Buzzballs, still sticky with the promise of cocktailed energy as buoys. Sometimes a booking is more than just a good day in the calendar, sometimes it’s a cultural event.
Lido’s ‘Party Girl’ day feels like that. Since Brat was released in 2024 and skyrocketed Charli from a relatively cultish figure to a total global phenomenon, she’s only touched down in London a few times. There was a big O2 date and a few smaller brand-deal shows, while America got the entire Sweat tour and Coachella, and Europe got the Primavera set. But the announcement of this curated day felt like, finally, London was getting to truly celebrate Brat.
I say Brat and not just Charli, because it was bigger than that, and instantly, landing in the park, that was palpable. It feels like for the last year, anything Charli touches turns to gold, and that’s true of her collaborators, many of whom she’s placed on this lineup with her as the world of the record comes to life.
Despite appearing as a somewhat odd one out in a day heavily dominated by music to do MDMA to, The Japanese House draws a big crowd to the mainstage early, blessed by the Midas touch of her ‘Apple’ remix on the album’s remix edition. Magdalena Bay packed out the tent of the second stage so heavily that I turned to my friends and instantly made a plan: “We need to get here early for The Dare.” While the energy is too good for it to be any real draw back, Lido is minorly cursed by having a big crowd with less ground than is usually granted to the Victoria Park revellers during these summer sessions as half the usual second stage area during All Points East is the main stage today, losing about half of the land. It’s also mildly cursed by its own genius – putting all of the main players of Brat in one place means that everyone wants to see them. When all these artists exist in the same realm, naturally having the same fans, it means that the sets are packed; each and every one, as there is no real level of splitting opinions here.
That’s proved by The Dare and the fact that every single person on site seemed to be crammed into that tent. I heard someone ask the sensible question of, “Why didn’t they put him on the main stage?” but then he showed them exactly why. The Dare thrives in a small, sweaty place. He’s a club kid, through and through, meant to appear in grimy basements far too late in the night. Sure, this was 6:30pm, but the bodies filling the space ensured none of the sun could even crack through, and the second his strobe lights came on, it was the middle of the night. He delivered one of his most powerful sets, throwing himself around the stage like he owned it until he granted a small piece of that deed to a surprise Pink Pantheress appearance. Perhaps The Dare’s finest skill is not that matter who hard you may resist, through ignorance or intolerance, is that you get swept up anyway. Even if you don’t know the songs or don’t particularly care for them, that’s lost the second it all kicks off.
The festival site is humming with activity and, naturally, rumours are swirling. Charli XCX has made a name for herself for bringing out guests in times like this, during ‘quote-unquote’, big shows. To everyone there, this is one of those big shows, this is a momentous one, so names like current pop giants Lorde and Addison Rae are being thrown around, as well as wondering who from the pool of collaborators already on the lineup might make the step out from the side of the stage.
In the most unexpected move of the evening, the answer is revealed to be no one. She brings out Bladee, but technical issues and mess-ups rob that moment. But as she plays the obvious collaboration tracks, like ‘Von Dutch’, where Rae delivers her iconic scream, or ‘Girl, So Confusing’, where the remix has usurped the original so obviously that Lorde’s verse is merely played on track, the same thing happens. Phones are raised in anticipation of an appearance, then swiftly dropped when it’s clear no one is there.
Special guests are not the be-all and end-all of a show, but the obsession with it perfectly captures the interesting dichotomy of Charli XCX now. In our review of Brat, Far Out noted that it feels like a tale of two Charli’s: the party girl and then her, switching at hyperspeed between hedonism and intense introspection and a more vulnerable artistry. She puts that on stage, played out during ‘I Might Say Something Stupid’, a song starkly about her confusion and mixed feelings towards fame, which she cuts up here with moment of loud bass and the lights flashing, seeing her literally switching between a sad song and then the archetype of a pop star, throwing her body around for the camera.
But mostly, it feels played out in the energy of the crowd as the boost in Charli’s fame has, to some degree, done what she worried it would do: kill the vibe. People care a lot about the suspected guests, and people care a lot about capturing the right moment on their shiny black mirror, guessing as to who may be next to do the now-famous ‘Apple’ dance. That alone is a perfect representation of the switch.
The dance used to be a thing for fans to do, with a camera finding the most enthusiastic crowd member, gleefully performing the dance. Now, the one in frame is always a celebrity, and people are so obsessed with filming that moment, no one around me actually had fun and did the dance. Something about it feels oddly corporate, especially as she clutches an Aperol Spritz, a brand she’s currently in a deal with.
Then it ends, even with 20 minutes left until her curfew, it just kind of ends as her new finale speech questioning whether Brat summer can be forever. She says it can, but she doesn’t do an encore. It feels oddly anticlimactic for a day crafted solely around her.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun. Just like with The Dare, it’s impossible really to not have fun as these songs, crafted by someone deeply engaged with club culture, are designed to make you dance. Charli XCX has cracked the code of that, and the success of Brat came directly from it. She is an artist who more than deserved her flowers, and I’m more than happy she got them. However, the tale of two Charli’s plays out differently on this side of success, caught between being the still exciting artist and now the global popstar.
Lido becomes a split stage; half a genuine celebration of everything that made Charli XCX such a vibrant force, half just the kind of event people attend for the Instagram story, more interested in the post than the performance.
