This weekend I got to see Lily Allen. It was her first performance in Switzerland in years and especially in the German-speaking part of the country. But with her newest album being released, she’s taking her new songs on tour throughout Europe.
Before Lily Allen got on stage, another brit got to perform and warm up the crowd. The singer/rapper S-X brought his laptop up on stage and entertained the audience for about 30 minutes before the main act would take the stage.
Pictures S-X at Komplex 457
A little after 9pm, Lily Allen started her set. In super shiny and glittery baggy pants of some sort and an almost see-through pink top, she took the stage. While her outfit was quite colorful and let’s say an eye catcher, her stage set up was rather simple and clean. Apart from the 2 LED light towers on each side and some bigger lights on each side of the stage, there was literally nothing else. But hey sometimes less is more… Sometimes… When it comes to the audience, not so much. There was still quite some room left at the venue. But then again, there were quite a lot of other events going on that night. In the beginning, it was rather quiet, people weren’t really in a Saturday-Night-Party-Mood yet. But also Lily Allen was more quiet than I would have imagined her being. She did try to interact with the fans a lot, keeping eyecontact or even talking to fans – which I find really important and really great! But somehow I felt like there was not enough energy in the room or on stage. Lily was drinking some hot beverage (I’m guessing tea) and kept spraying something in her mouth, maybe she wasn’t feeling too well? That would explain the lack of energy…
The oldies are still goldies
It was nice to have heard the songs off her new album. She played “Three” and “What You Waiting For” and of course a couple more. But you could tell, the mood totally peaked when the older songs were performed. “LDN” came up quite early in the set, while for example “Not Fair” was performed a while later. I was a bit surprised about Lily’s song “Who’d Have Known” – the chorus had the exact same melody as Take That’s Nr 1 hit “Shine” (yes, that was a song I haven’t really heard before, even though it’s been around for a while, being released on her first album).
In the end, we got to hear 3 encores. The last one being one of her probably biggest hits “Fuck You”. Up went all the middle fingers and the crowd was singing louder than they have been all night. That’s what I call a great ending to an otherwise “meh” kind of evening (for me at least). I know I sound like a total grump lately (with some small exceptions ;-)). But hey, you just cannot love every single concert or be over the moon about every performance… I was a bit disappointed in the overall mood, it just could have been better. It was a shame that most of the music wasn’t played live and just came off a tape or laptop or whatever. But, yes there’s a but… I was very surprised that Lily took the time to meet all her fans after the show. She showed up at the merch table and signed stuff, took pictures and had a chat with everyone that was still around. While I was watching the fans I did hear a lot of people talking about the show, and how “she played all my favorite songs” – they were clearly happy. So I guess that’s a good sign, her fans are happy and enjoyed the show. I guess that’s the most important thing… And I have to admit, after seeing Charlie Winston, pretty much every other artist would have had a hard time to top that…
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