As a fairly new listener to Claire Cottrill, better know as Clairo, I was excited to catch the second of her London dates at Electric Ballroom. And whilst Clairo showed herself to be nothing less than an impressive musician and performer, I left feeling a little bit disappointed. Opening with ‘Alewife’, two things became clear – Clairo was going to deliver a beautiful show, but her microphone desperately needed to be louder. The show followed a well curated setlist, mixing tracks from her debut album, Immunity, with earlier singles such as ‘Hot Cheeto’ and ‘2 Hold U’ from her ‘bedroom pop’ days. Her band was exceptional, providing flawless backing to the gentle, but engaging performance she delivered. Even though most of the crowd were very involved in her performance, especially those directly in front of the stage, she fell victim to the chatter from the back of the room being audible over the quieter songs in her set – which, due to her particular style of music, were most of them. This was compounded by poor sound mixing, allowing her soft and lullaby-like vocals to be lost to a microphone that should have been much louder compared to her instruments. This may well have been intentional – Clairo’s exposing lyrics and beautiful voice create a listening experience that feels like you are the only one she is singing to. However, her more poppy and upbeat songs such as ‘North’ and ‘4 Ever’ didn’t suffer the same fate and were well received, being met with a chorus of backing vocals from the crowd. The dreamy and ‘aesthetic’ lighting and stage design, featuring blue and pink washes with images of clouds, water, and rain, not only accentuated the softness of her performance, but also provided beautiful backdrops for the audience to put on their Instagram stories. This constant filming and sharing by much of the crowd didn’t seem to bother Clairo, which contrasts with several other gigs I have been to where performers have made a
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