Dua Lipa
Hydro, Glasgow
Since her double win at this year’s Brits, 22-year-old Dua Lipa has sealed the deal as the pop star du jour. She’s a sleek and streamlined machine, generating enough attitude to appeal to the teens, sufficient energy for the tots but wholesome enough to pass muster with the parents, even when she’s singing sweary words.
On her first arena tour, it was apparent that she also has Beyoncé-style pretensions as a pop sage, delivering a couple of portentous voiceovers about freedom of expression which were just a fancy way to invite the audience to have some fun.
She does not yet have the budget, experience nor clout to follow through with a visual extravaganza. Hers was a simple stage show coloured with bright 80s graphics, live band looking (suitably) like refugees from the Top of The Pops 1985 repeats and a couple of dancers in their rehearsal togs with whom Lipa kept up admirably.
Her music made antiseptic use of reggae rhythms and the teasing breakdowns and crescendos of dance music with some much needed variety in the form of pacey pop number Be The One, the Pg-rated R’N’B slow jam High, from the soundtrack of 50 Shades Freed, and Thinking ’Bout You, a sultry soul ballad accompanied solely by electric guitar which showed off the huskiness in her tone.
It’s early days for Lipa and presumably her monster hit New Rules and cathartic diss IDGAF have bought her the commercial leeway to develop a distinct persona which is so far lacking.