Through the darkness at Heaven on a Wednesday night in June, the lights on the underground venue’s prestigious stage flash pink before GIRLI walks out to thudding alt-pop production. Some things never change.
Yet, as the star brings her Matriarchy tour to a close in London with her trademark character, there’s very much a feeling that this is a completely new GIRLI as her sophomore album comes to life.
The night kicks off with one of Matriarchy‘s most high-octane moments in ‘Nothing Hurts Like a Girl’ but the message behind its powerful chorus is one of self-acceptance rather than the teen angst that marked the star’s early releases.
“I think the shows used to feel like a rage room,” GIRLI admits to CelebMix after the tour has come to an end. “It was about smashing metaphorical plates around and now they’re more like group talking therapy – more of a heart-to-heart between me and the crowd.”
In a nutshell, that’s exactly the journey GIRLI has been on since debuting in 2015. Her tale of breaking through as a teenager before signing a record deal and being dropped before the pandemic is one well-documented.
While the context of that journey makes the singer’s landmark show at Heaven all the more impressive, GIRLI is clearly an artist reborn. The down-and-out ‘I Don’t Like Myself’ of 2021 is delivered with confidence before the full-throttle ‘Crush Me Up’ marks where the pop star is now.
It’s the moments from Matriarchy that prove the highlights of the night. Fan favourite ‘Find My Feelings’ is delivered eye-to-eye with concertgoers at the barrier while an acoustic take on ‘Tokyo’ is a charming moment of intimacy.
“It feels like it could be the first tour I’ve ever done,” GIRLI admits. “The crowds are mostly new people, the music and production has levelled up and the way I look at my shows has changed. I see them as a celebration of community and a safe space, a matriarchy!”
There is still plenty of time for GIRLI to pay homage to the earlier tracks on her discography over a jam-packed hour of material. ‘Friday Night Big Screen’ is a stadium-sized singalong while ‘Letter to My Ex’ is an underrated banger. ‘Girl I Met on the Internet’ is another classic and dates all the way back to 2016.
“It definitely is strange performing songs that I wrote when I was a teenager now that I’m a woman in her mid-twenties,” GIRLI reflects. “But when it’s a fan favourite like ‘Girl I Met on the Internet’ and it has a significance to my journey as an artist – that was the first song I wrote in which I was writing an openly queer love story – then it feels important to play it.”
There are few that do a queer love story quite like the 26-year-old, as is clear to hear on ‘More Than a Friend’. That track has pulled in streams in their tens of millions and could well be the most impressive on the GIRLI discography, somehow finding even more life on the live stage.
The energy that flick brings about in the crowd is perhaps only matched by the rattling ‘Hot Mess’, a song that has become the linchpin of a GIRLI set. “It’s super fun to perform because we’ve revamped it for these shows” the singer shares.
“Dale, my choreographer, created this mic stand Supremes-meets-Hairspray dance for it that me and my backing singer Laya do together and it’s super fun. The crowd go wild!
“Hot Mess resonates with people because it’s about challenging the pressure put on women to have a ‘spotless’ image. There’s an inner messiness in all of us.”
The night comes to an end with the title track from Matriarchy. It’s on that song that the star’s transformation over the past nine years is perhaps clearest to hear – it’s always been about rebellion for GIRLI, but now its potency comes from the heart.
“It was honestly a hugely significant moment to play that song at Heaven,” GIRLI admits after the show. “It’s about creating your own queer safe space and community, in an historic queer space that I’ve been to many times in my life. Pinch me!”
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