Bursting onto stage with trademark energy and buckets of charisma, when Sigrid found her stride in Newcastle she had the place well and truly bouncing. It was the more tender numbers that needed the most refinement.
Since arriving in the city two months ago, I’ve learnt one thing: Newcastle loves football. Walking through town on a Wednesday evening I soon found myself fighting against a thick swarm of many thousands of black and white shirts, bypassing overflowing pubs and cars plonked onto pavements presumably by fans who concluded the parking wardens must be going to the game too. It seemed a fair assumption, given that everywhere else outside the immediate vicinity of St. James’ Park was so eerily quiet. Even the streets leading up to O2 City Hall that I remembered had been so packed with punters when Declan McKenna was in town had no queue to speak of, and I breezed through the security and tickets checks in a matter of seconds. Inside I found what seemed to be the remaining few Geordies that had managed to pry themselves away from a Newcastle United home fixture for the sake of their chosen popstar. An hour before the evening’s two events took place, that crowd of outliers numbered only a few hundred.
Sigrid may not have been the biggest act in town, but sure enough the O2 City Hall filled up nicely as support act Tommy LeFroy’s set came and went. Like her Norwegian peer AURORA, Sigrid has found a second home over here in the UK, and a string of feel-good hits in recent years has earned her regular appearances in the UK Top 40 and popular repeat appearances at many of Britain’s biggest summer festivals. Where AURORA is an artsy and occasionally experimental Björk descendent, Sigrid deals squarely with no-nonsense, party-ready pop hits. At her best, her exuberant hooks and uplifting lyrical themes of love and self acceptance are easily good enough to overcome any need for added profundity; any critic who listens to sure fire pop bangers Strangers or Mirror and bemoans a lack of lyrical depth needs to go out more.
A huge part of what makes Sigrid such dynamite at those summer concerts is her radiant stage presence. Never one to stand still, her renowned tirelessness was in full display at Newcastle as she skipped from one side of the stage to the other, hopping on and off monitor speakers and boogieing alongside bandmates with more hip movement than a Strictly final. Her connection to the audience was ever present, often dishing out knowing winks or discreet waves mid-verse to specific concertgoers, invariably triggering an adorable little forest of arms vigorously waving back in the dizzying excitement of being looked in the eyes by Queen Sigrid. The result was a lovely, congenial atmosphere in the City Hall, as if the universally liked friend had gone up in karaoke to sing our favourite tunes along with us.
And, as karaoke singers go, Sigrid turns out to be a pretty great one. She was already belting out an unscripted high note in punchy opener It Gets Dark, her voice piercing and crystal clear, with a well judged hint of grit when the soaring melodies demanded it. Early highlight Mistake Like You also provided an example of Sigrid’s vocals at their genre-leading best, and a dynamic performance from her backing band helped elevate the ballad well beyond its lacklustre studio recording. By far most extraordinary aspect of Sigrid’s performance was how well she managed to keep the standard of vocals so consistently strong in spite of all her onstage athletics. Attempting to sing along to the hits whilst bouncing along in the crowd, I can vouch that breath control like that takes serious skill, and far from all popstars possess it.
It helped too that Sigrid’s band are not your typical karaoke backing track, and clever edits often turned good songs into great ones. A deserved reprise of It Gets Dark‘s deliciously scratchy guitar solo gave guitarist Sondre Berg Abrahamsen – who spent much of the night humbly lurking in the shadows of stage left – a few more glorious seconds to twiddle away till his heart’s content, and the crowd rightly lapped it up. Burning Bridges, the finest example of Sigrid’s punchy, 80s-hinting brand of pop, had an even more surprising edit with a new outro driven by a pummelling techno synth. A track blessed with an anthemic chorus and a sensational strings melody, placing Burning Bridges at track two of the evening set a very high bar that was never quite overcome for the remainder of the show.
Her opening numbers may have been a bit too good for her own good, but the momentum was never completely lost. Even the piano ballads at the show’s heart offered a nice change of pace, and Sigrid’s choice to accompany herself on piano, alone under the spotlight, added a degree of drama and earnestness on a night of straightforward pop earworms. Dynamite was poignant but a simplified piano part made it rather unmemorable, and follow up three-chorder Bad Life lacked any of the songwriting or lyrical quality necessary to stand up to the scrutiny of the solo piano treatment. Drab and trite throughout, the song remains easily her most overrated. The inclusion of Bring Me the Horizon’s clichéd pop punk guitars found on the original would at least have added an iota of interest. Unremarkable Dancer followed and lacked an emotional climax for it to stand out amongst the pack of similar pop songs. Sucker Punch was more warmly greeted by fans but – let’s admit it – its verse, with its bumbling, unintentionally comical synth bass and cheap-feeling drum machine, already feels hopelessly dated. Perhaps the song belongs to an era of pop that sounds deeply uncool now but will be in vogue once the early 2010s sound begins to be considered ‘retro’, but, listening in the year 2022, something about Sucker Punch just doesn’t quite work.
Luckily there was still plenty of safer hits in Sigrid’s locker to deploy in a breathless final few tracks. Don’t Feel Like Crying was a quintessential Sigridian self empowerment anthem and surely a direct offspring of Call Me Maybe with its sprightly strings chords. Old faithful Strangers was improved further with some monumental fills from Kasper Waag, who was enjoying his best moments of an outstanding overall performance behind the drum kit. Even relatively unknown encore track Grow was a success, serving as Sigrid’s most affecting love song by far. “Take me anywhere… I’m home,” we sang together softly under the light of our own phone torches, Sigrid’s hips no longer gyrating but instead swaying gently to the reassuring lilt of the acoustic guitar. Basking in the warm glow emanating from behind Sigrid, the only disappointment was that the ballad had to eventually draw to a close.
Unquestionably the song of her career so far, flawless pop smash Mirror was the only choice for the evening’s set closer. “I love who I see looking at me in the mirror” was Sigrid’s simple but effective self love philosophy distilled into the perfect chorus hook, and a wonderfully uplifting mantra to live by. Unfathomably still with plenty of dancing energy left in the tank, Sigird’s passion had those in the stalls jumping up from their seats and bobbing along with the rest of us amidst a dazzling multicolour light show.
Mirror marked a triumphant finish to a somewhat imbalanced performance. Nonetheless, the buzz of deeply satisfied fans in the room after Sigrid had left the stage was heart-warming. Squeezing onto a packed double decker on my journey home was one of the more brutal returns to reality after a gig I’ve experienced. Thickly-woollened men thoughtfully discussed why exactly Miguel Almiron didn’t take that penalty whilst scantily clad young women loudly replayed endless recordings of the Sigrid back catalogue on their phones. So, which was the more fulfilling occasion, an uplifting night dancing the world away to the tune of rejuvenating self affirmation or a 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace? For me, it’s a no-brainer.