Carly Rae Jepsen at Alexandra Palace gig review: one of pop’s most life-affirming pity parties

Parts of the show might have been bland, but the Jepsen faithful got what they came for
Carly Rae Jepsen Performs At Alexandra Palace
Redferns
Mark Beaumont16 February 2023

“Are you ready to run away with me?” Canadian pop queen Carly Rae Jepsen asked Alexandra Palace, bounding across a stage festooned with theatrical curtains and rave club lights in a shocking pink leotard that suggested she’d arrived at her biggest ever London show fresh from a work-out session with RuPaul.

From the sound of it, Ally Pally would have cancelled the next month of Zoom meetings to follow her anywhere; the question was, where to? A Puerto Rico rhumba rave club? Studio 54? A Nashville pop-rock joint? Vegas ’67? The school from Fame?

They were all stop-offs in a show blessed with plentiful pop variety, by dint of Jepsen attempting to recreate Taylor Swift’s entire career in fast forward. Emerging from Canadian Idol in 2007, by 2015 she’d already released her folk debut, her breakthrough bubblegum pop record (2012’s Kiss, featuring the ubiquitous Call Me Maybe) and her skulk off into indie pop collaboration with members of The Cardigans, Vampire Weekend and Blood Orange on third album Emotion.

A breakneck evolution, yes, but one that allowed her to slip seamlessly between pop styles last night: the Afrobeat fanfares and sizzling country hooks of Surrender My Heart, the funk driven synthpop of Joshua Tree, the Paramore pop rock of Talking To Yourself and the Copacabana cabaret feel of her latest album’s title track The Loneliest Time. Much of it was spattered with hard rock powerchords, as if one of her backing band was frustrated he wasn’t playing under the stage for Metallica by now.

Carly Rae Jepsen Performs At Alexandra Palace
Pop queen: the show was blessed with a variety of genres
Redferns

Dramatic and infectious power pop smashes like Call Me Maybe, Stay Away and I Really Like You stood out, but so too did Jepsen’s masterful way of upturning her copious boy problems in song. Angsty, all-the-feels defiance was central to her charm: roars went up as she declared the titular summer-romance Romeo of Julien “turned out to be a d***”, or yelled “We need men! Men just turn out to be old boys and we don’t want that!” ahead of a jaunty Boy Problems. When she took to a stool for an acoustic encore of Go Find Yourself Or Whatever, it made for a consummate country ballad flick of the bird; by contrast, So Nice – about “a nice guy, no drama, good communicator” - proved so, so bland.

With Jepson changed into a ragged white skirt and jumper combo for the second act, the show ultimately descended into a mulch of Latino rave pop, albeit peppered with dashes of Madonna and heartening morals. I Didn’t Just Come Here To Dance, she declared, was “a motto for life”; true, the Jepsen faithful came for one of pop’s most life-affirming pity parties, and didn’t leave empty-hearted.

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