‘Part of my DNA’: Charli XCX and the fight to save club culture

Don’t put away your strappy top and bik lighter just yet – Charli XCX’s Brit Arena Tour has just landed in the UK.

Kicking off in Manchester on Wednesday, the gigs will be hoping to keep the frenzy of Brett Summer well into the winter months.

But could the mega-tour give Britain’s club scene the boost it so desperately needs?

“The club scene right now, I’ll be honest, it’s pretty scary,” London DJ Moxie told BBC Newsbeat.

Over 100 music venues in the UK Live music stopped last year. With more than half of them closing completely – according to the Music Venues Trust.

“We rely on a lot of students and a lot of students aren’t going out,” Moxey says.

“They are preferring to stay in because they can’t afford to go out.

“Everything has grown and it has affected places.”

Venues that are closing or struggling to stay open are the types of venues where Charli XCX honed her craft.

Charlie has been talked about before. To take his parents to him When she was a teenager and before she was selling arenas, she was working warehouse gigs.

“She’s been around so long and she used to go out — I used to get mad at her when she was 15,” Moxie says.

“She’s starting conversations about the places that have inspired her.”

And as those venues begin to disappear, Moxie hopes Charlie’s fans will discover a love of club music that’s fading.

“Especially if someone like Charli XCX is telling them: ‘This is where I come from, the clubs made me, it’s part of my DNA’.”

It’s not just Charlie bringing club music into the mainstream either – Fred Again headlined Reading and Leeds festivals in the summer and Peggy Go had a number of sell-out shows.

Brett is Charlie’s sixth album and is up for multiple awards, including three Grammys and a Mercury Prize.

Hot on its heels was the remix album, Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat, and an arena tour.

And for top performers headlining arenas, fans are used to paying over the odds.

But at Charli’s show in Manchester on Wednesday, friends Niamh and Freya say they were “really shocked” to pay just £40 each to see Charli XCX.

“We thought it would be more expensive,” he says.

“It wasn’t bad at all – it was really affordable.”

Compare that to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour where, on average, fans spent. £206 on a single ticket.

Regular standing tickets to a Beyoncé Renaissance show cost up to £410 and tickets to Billie Eilish’s upcoming UK dates can set you back up to £398.

More than half of people in the UK have said so. High prices have stopped them from going to gigs. in the last five years.

For those under 34, two-thirds of them said it meant they did. reduced their numbers.

Tasha and Lucas also spent £40 on their tickets and are hoping Charli XCX will boost the club scene.

They travel from Chester where Lucas says “there’s not a huge club scene” but often travel to other towns and cities to support artists and venues.

Tasha says she’s always enjoyed the club scene and is excited to bring Charlie more into the mainstream.

“She’s the first of our first generation to make this crossover,” she says.

“She’s breaking boundaries,” Lucas added.

Other fans who spoke to NewsBeat at the gig told us they were new to the club and were drawn to the scene by Charlie’s music.

“The party culture died out a little bit,” says fan Amara. “I hope it revives it.”

Music journalist and critic Shad D’Souza told Newsbeat that he “has to hope and pray” that as many of Charlie’s fans are as excited about joining and leaving the club as Amara.

He’s particularly excited about what Brat could mean for the future of the genre – as well as people going to dance and support venues.

“It’s refreshing that someone is going underground for new sounds,” he says.

“Because what we see a lot lately is pop musicians’ direct reference points are pop history.”

He points to Tate McRae throwing back Britney Spears as an example, compared to artists like Madonna and Prince taking influences outside of pop in different ways and bringing them into the mainstream in the past decades.

“I think that’s what Charlie is doing here and I think that’s what’s missing,” Shad says.

“When we refer to the Pope, we lose something.”

As for what the Brat Tour could do for the clubbing scene, Shad believes that, while there’s a growing market for big-ticket events like festivals and era tours, bigger gigs can happily co-exist with a smaller club scene. are

“I don’t think the big pop tour is eating up the small club landscape,” he says.

“To me what’s causing the clubs to close is property development and council regulations – no pop star is to blame for club closures.”

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