Lily Allen, O2 Institute, Birmingham - review with pictures
Lily Allen is as fascinating a person as she is an accomplished pop singer.
Her Twitter feed can be as compelling as her back catalogue - taking a swipe at exes in her songs and the political elite on her social media. She can also inform, taking up causes and making you aware of things you may have missed.
So you are kind of hoping for all the above when you see her take to the stage as we did this bitterly cold evening at Birmingham’s O2 Institute.
She came on to chants from her screaming fans – “Lily, Lily, Lily f***ing Allen.”
If we thought this would set a precedent, it didn’t. The evening was serene. Lily sparkled in her green spangly dress, fluorescent eyeshadow and flowing blonde locks that reflected her light show onto the faces at the front.
She swooned around the stage, full of smiles and giggles. She seemed in a happy mood and it emanated into her crowd.
Like with her latest record No Shame, Come On Then opened the night, and it was when LDN came third track in that the crowd finally put their mobile phones down and started screaming along instead. This is Allen at her puff-pop best – her voice is much better than she gets credit for.
It was back to No Shame with What You Waiting For? And its funk-filled undercurrent had arms and hips swaying. Lily was hitting us with short blocks of tracks before stopping for a chat. It was revving the crowd up and keeping them in the zone with her.
The big beats of Knock 'Em Out from her 2006 debut record Alright, Still bounced off the walls, while her huge hit Smile was a mass, high-pitched karaoke. She then gave us a new unreleased track, Party Line, that again mixed deep bass lines with a nice orchestral twinge to the chorus.
We had a slight lull in the set at one point, which had many at the back of the room chatting and laughing over the top of her - much to the annoyance of a few big fans around us. But she soon shut them up again by picking up the tempo with The Fear, Higher, Who’d Have Known and a foot-stomping rendition of Not Fair.
Apples started the encore slowly, but then she kicked back in with her Giggs collaboration Trigger Bang and after her one political pointer of the evening discussing Theresa May’s Brexit deal, she sent us home aggy and happy with F*** You.
She teased us at one point that this was her last ever tour, and let’s hope it really was a joke.
