Charli XCX and Troye Sivan turn up the heat in Philadelphia on “The Sweat Tour”

Review by Ash Schnoor –

 

Imagine this: you buy 60-dollar nosebleed tickets five months before a concert. Two months before one of the headliners releases her album that changes the trajectory of pop culture. This was my setup for the “SWEAT” tour – headlined by none other than THE Charli XCX and Troye Sivan. None other than THE gay pop icons, live at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA.

I must start with a sort of “writer’s note” about my journey to the Wells Fargo Center. This includes a 50-minute bus to Newark, a four-block walk to Newark Penn, a one-and-a-half-hour train to Trenton (including a half-hour delay), a 40-minute train ride to Philadelphia City Hall, and a 15-minute subway ride to arrive at my final destination. I must note that this was an over four-hour journey that started at 2:45 p.m. for a concert that started at 7:30 p.m. (Also yet another note: I had to make this exact journey in REVERSE after the concert to get home at 3-ish a.m… but that’s my own story. Oh the joys of living on campus)

Now to ackshully get started with the review since that is technically what you’re here for. We start with the opening act: Shygirl. Now I must admit that I totally forgot that there was an opener until the literal day of the concert. This was my fault so I couldn’t listen to her music for as long as I would’ve liked. The performance was interesting. She only had two backup dancers and minimal choreography while singing, but I think that it kind of fit the aesthetic for her music. Her music isn’t exactly my cup of tea, so I wasn’t very thrilled with her as an opener. As a chronic Charli XCX listener I think that someone such as Lorde, Slayyyter, Kim Petras; kind of just that realm of pop music might’ve fit the vibe of a concert more than Shygirl. But also I understand that Charli & Shygirl are friends so that is kind of understandable.

After Shygirl performed there was about a 25-minute period of just pre-show music that is popular at the moment. This includes “Bed Chem” by Sabrina Carpenter, “2 die 4” by Addison Rae, and “Baby” by Justin Bieber which unfortunately got cut short by Shygirl, which I was personally disappointed by – but to each their own. 

Now to start with the SHOOOOWWWW! It was amazing and I am so excited to yap about it. To preface this – The show is set up in rounds of three. Sivan opens with three songs, then XCX does three songs, and then they go back and forth throughout the whole concert. This was honestly a perfect way to set up the show because it constantly kept the energy up with the crowd, but also gave the artists enough time to rest in between switches.

The stage was set up wonderfully. At the center of the stage, there was some scaffolding set up like in a city. On either side were two screens set up like billboards with platforms below them that XCX took advantage of several times throughout the night.

Now comes the best part, and the focus of the concert: THE SETLIST! I should preface this by saying it was a freaking AMAZING setlist. I will say that there could have been additions to the setlist, but this is the only concert I’ve been to where I believe that none of the songs should’ve been removed from the lineup.

Chapter one of the concert: “Got Me Started,” “What’s The Time Where You Are” and “My My My!” – all three by Troye Sivan. These three are amazing songs. WTTWYA is one of my favorite songs by Troye and I had a blast screaming and dancing to it. Honestly, an amazing way to open the concert and was literally an amazing emotional rollercoaster. 

Next up was Charli’s part with I’d argue some of the best songs of the night – “365,” “360” and “Von dutch.” Some of the best club songs of this decade, and it was a BLAST to dance to in a crowd full of (majority) gay people. I think it was an interesting choice to have “365” and “360” right next to each other just because of how they are set up in the album – Where “360” is the opening song and “365” is the closing song. I think that doing something similar for the show would have been ideal, but this is Charli’s concert, not mine.

On to chapter two! We throw it back to Mr. Sivan with “In My Room,” “Dance To This” (feat. Ariana Grande – no she wasn’t at the show unfortunately), and “Rager teenager!” These three songs have been my soundtrack for the past month or so. “Dance To This” was cute because Sir Sivan of Troye had us (the crowd) since Grande’s part. And I emotionally relate to “Rager teenager!” at this point in my life so it was really meaningful to hear it in person. 

Onto Miss Charli <3 Club classics, “Unlock it (Lock It)” feat. Kim Petras (she was also not there), “Sympathy is a knife” AND “Guess” (the Billie Eilish version, of course). This was a freaking AMAZING section of the party and it had me out of breath for a good twenty minutes – I genuinely saw the light at the end of the tunnel and I’m not mad about it. Luckily they skipped the Jay Park verse of “Unlock It” which is amazing because I am not a fan of his verse. Then for “Guess,” XCX had us sing Eilish’s part which was so fun. 

Now we have what I’ll call chapter INSANITY because we temporarily stop from a few songs back and forth to a RAPID SPEED SESSION. We start with “Bloom” by Sivan, then “Girl so confusing” (the Lorde version of course, she was also not there though), “Boys” by XCX, and then “One Of Your Girls” by Drag Sivan (Sivan was in a skirt, it was amazing). This section of the concert was wild because it was iconic bop after iconic bop. Troy (spelled incorrectly on purpose, it’s funny) did the ICONIC chair dance from the “One Of Your Girls” music video, and the audience honestly just had an amazing time singing our hearts out. And then obviously we have “Boys” and “Girl, so confusing,” which are both amazing songs that the whole crowd screamed every word to (as they should).

We FINALLYYYY have chapter three! Which honestly may be up for the contender of the best run of songs of the concert. We have “Everything is romantic,” “Speed Drive” (from the “Barbie” movie), and then “APPLE!” “Everything is romantic” is a very simple song, but it’s fun to just dance and be a girl to! One of my favorites for real. Then we have “Speed Drive” which is whiplash and made me run out of breath so badly. When they called this the SWEAT tour they meant it, mama. And finally, we have “APPLE!” This song is such a fun song to just dance to and have a blast and Mary that’s EXACTLY what we did. I had a blast and could not give higher praise to Charli XCX for putting these things together.

And now, we reach chapter four – which is unfortunately the last chapter of the concert. Very bittersweet but don’t worry we still have a handful of songs to cover. First, Mr. Sroye Tivan did “Silly,” followed by “You,” and ending with “STUD.” This is honestly a really good run of songs to just vibe to.

We now reach the last part of the concert with one of Charli XCX’s most iconic songs ever… “Vroom Vroom!” When I tell you I screamed my heart out – That is such an understatement. I lost my voice after the show and I believe that “Vroom Vroom” contributed to that at least 50%.

Finally, we end with an absolutely iconic song of our time. Nineteen ninety-nine (“1999”). This song perfectly enhances the 2000s vibe of music with a new pop twist. It was such a good song to end the concert with – Especially since it’s the only song that Troye and Charli have together. 

Now that marks the end of the “SWEAT” tour. We danced, we sang, we jumped, but most importantly… WE SWEAT! And I have a twist that no one expected (sarcasm) – ENCORE! Imagine this. The arena is pitch black with a faint chanting of “Encore! Encore! Encore!” and all of a sudden Charli comes back out from backstage to perform “Track 10.”

I wasn’t originally a fan of this song, but it honestly grew on me and was so fun to dance to, especially after the slight break after the concert “ended.” She then goes on to perform “I Love It” which is arguably Charli’s most iconic song EVER! This was a BLAST to dance to in a concert. This song came out in 2013 – Eight-year-old me could have never even dreamed that I would be in an arena jumping, dancing, and screaming to this song. It fulfilled all the wildest fantasies I ever dreamed of while listening to this song.

Onto Sivan’s part of the encore – First, we have “Honey!” “Honey” is a chill song that was nice to just kind of vibe to, especially after the chaos of “Track 10” and “I Love It” back-to-back. 

And then after that, we have “Rush.” Now if you’ve ever heard this song, I don’t think I even need to talk about this much – But I will for those who aren’t as well acquainted. This song is quite literally the ultimate party song. Sivan crafted the ultimate gay pop raver with this song. Combining something a crucial part of gay culture with the ultimate club song goes so hard, I love it. The entire crowd went crazy and I expected nothing less even though we were close to an hour and a half straight of concert.

Now it is actually time for the final song of the night: “Talk talk” by Charli XCX FEATURING none other than Troye Sivan. Now, “1999” was an amazing ending song, but “Talk talk” seriously puts up an amazing fight for being the perfect ending song (I slightly lied earlier when I said that “1999” was their only song together because that was true until the “Talk talk” remix came out about two or so weeks ago). When I say that this song was the way to go out with a bang, I am underselling the experience. The song being so fast-paced and amazing to jump to was just so perfect.

Overall this is one of the best concerts I’ve been to. I’ve been to several concerts with floor tickets, even getting close to being third row from the stage of Citi Field was such a similarly fun experience to the “SWEAT” tour with $60 nosebleed tickets. It was an amazing experience and I would do so many things just to experience it again. I would do even more to experience what it was like to be in the pit for this show. It would’ve been an ethereal experience like no other!

Signing off ~ Your gay pop expert, Ash Schnoor