Live Review: Charli XCX at Barclays Center

On September 14, Charli XCX brought the Music, Fashion, Film tour to Barclays Center as part of her 12-date North American tour. This marks the 5th time Charli XCX has performed at the landmark Brooklyn arena. The electropop act Underscores opened at 8 pm with a 30-minute set of pop-punk-infused indie rock. Underscores tone connected well with the Brooklyn crowd. Charli came out at 9 pm on a triple-tiered stage with pyrotechnics surrounding a giant speaker 45 feet in the air, opening with “Rock Music,” from her latest LP,  Music, Fashion, Film, released by Atlantic Records.

Staying elevated above the stage, Charli connected with the audience through her next song, “Yeah,” with high-contrast flash lamps throughout the arena and flames emerging on the edge of the catwalk. You could feel every element of the production in your chest as if you were in a small club. Returning to her critically acclaimed album “Brat,” the arena lit up when the instrumental to “Apple” kicked in. Fans from her previous tour in 2024 returned two years later in neon outfits and black-and-white T-shirts coinciding with the style template of Music, Fashion, Film. Charli stepped off the high-rise stage to use the catwalk on “Card Declined,” with tall flash lamps emerging on the sides and a sea of backup dancers that returned throughout the set. The song wrapped with an extended outro to “I Keep On Thinking Bout You Every Single Day And Night.” With a deep catalog of over 8 studio albums since 2013, the Music, Fashion, Film tour packs in 29 songs spanning the various eras of Charli XCX, while looping in outros and visual elements on black-and-white video screens of her current album. 

The Barclays Center crowd was in the moment and engaged in the show, dancing the whole night, and erupted when special guest Kim Petras was brought out during “Unlock It” from her 2017 LP “Pop 2.” Slowing down on her B-side track “If You Take Away The Music What Has She Got,” standing in front of one spotlight on the second tier of the stage, the arena went quiet. Charli next appeared on the first tier of the stage wearing sunglasses, singing the nostalgic track “2007,” as the video display flashed while she sang “pop star in my bedroom like it’s 2007.” Without breaking the set’s stride, she then went into an outro of the 90s pop-infused “Camera” and transitioned into “Party 4 U,” reappearing 45 feet in the air at the top of the life-sized speaker in a haze of fog that consumed the audience. 

Charli and her backup dancers then took to the second level of the stage during “SS26” as she sang “spring, summer 26, when the world’s gonna end, no hope for any of it.” The show concluded with “No One Lasts Forever,” as an ominous message displayed on the central video screen, repeating ten times “they are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever” until Charli disappeared completely from the stage into the dark. The Music, Fashion, Film tour is an immersive arena show that treats fans to an hour and forty minutes of hard-hitting EDM and pop/rock music. 

    Setlist

1. Rock Music
2. Yeah
3. Apple
4. Wink Wink
5. Persona
6. Card Declined
7. I’m Afraid
8. Track 10
9. Girl, So Confusing
10. Pink Diamond
11. House
12. Next Level Charli
13. Dying For You
14. Club Classics
15. 365
16. 360
17. Sympathy Is A Knife
18. Von Dutch
19. Unlock It (With Special Guest Kim Petras)
20. Guess
21. If You Take Away The Music Then What Has She Got
22. 2007
23. Camera
24. Party 4 U
25. Vroom Vroom
26. Playboy Bunny
27. Magical Metal Montana
28. SS26
29. No One Lasts Forever