A sea of lime green and black descended on TD Garden last Saturday for the Boston stop of the SWEAT Tour, co-headlined by artists Charli XCX and Troye Sivan. While the color palette of the crowd was relatively uniform, their outfits were anything but. Fans sported everything from customized t-shirt renditions of the BRAT album cover and leather harnesses to slip-dresses and stilettos. Although the majority of outfits favored BRAT’s grungy, neon-and-black aesthetic over the sportswear and pastels associated with Troye’s latest album Something to Give Each Other, I did see more than one person dressed as Timothee Chalamet’s impression of the singer from the last season of SNL.
If you’re wondering what a co-headlined tour means, you’re not alone. Rather than performing one whole set and then the other, Troye and Charli switched off approximately every three songs. While this had the potential to be incredibly awkward, the two artists utilized multiple entrances/exits from the stage, as well as extensive camera work and video boards, to make the transitions seamless. Although the artists performed only two songs together (their 2018 collaboration “199” and the forthcoming remix of “Talk Talk,”) the show was filled with playful interactions between them, like when Troye appeared in the background while Charli was filmed strutting around beneath the stage.
Troye opened the show rather aptly with “Got Me Started,” the lead-off track from his most recent album. Given the memeification of Charli XCX’s BRAT and her subsequent rise in fame over the summer, Troye may have needed to work harder to command the crowd’s attention—and he did just that. He and his posse of oiled-up dancers owned every inch of the stage, putting on a deliciously queer performance. From the slow and sensual touches during “In My Room,” performed on a giant, silk-covered bed, to the frenetic choreography breaks during “Dance to This,” Troye and his dancers explored the full spectrum of queer love and sexuality. Even the more “vulgar” moments, like when Troye and a dancer got on all-fours and started thrusting, had a note of genuine intimacy and care that was visible even from my spot across the arena.
This choreography, along with a heavier bassline, also helped Troye reimagine some of his earlier hits to better fit the tour’s aesthetic. These changes meant that his comparatively juvenile 2018 tune “My My My!” felt just as at home in this setlist as it did on stage at Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour; it became a love letter to a younger and more insecure queer self from the singer’s present place of confidence in himself and his identity. That confidence was especially evident as Troye, in signature fashion, embodied queer masculinity and sexuality throughout his set. He performed a three-song run dressed in oversized basketball shorts and a white tank top, only to reappear after Charli’s turn on stage in a corset and leather pants for his gender-bending performance of “One of Your Girls.” His backup dancers were active participants throughout the evening, miming sex, receiving lap dances, and even holding a mic over one of their crotches for a kneeling Troye to sing into. This culminated in an extended makeout session—with tongue—between Troye and one of the dancers at the end of “Rush.”
Charli XCX, in contrast, largely chose to perform alone on stage. Her first three-song run began with a giant canopy version of the iconic BRAT album cover dropping over the b-stage. The audience greeted her with thunderous applause as she launched into a brief rendition of “365” featuring the tour’s opener, Shygirl. Charli was able to rely more on the audience to sing along, which came in handy when she performed the versions of “Guess” and “Girl, so confusing” that feature Billie Eilish and Lorde, respectively. The crowd seemed to relish the opportunity to scream lines like “Charli likes boys, but she knows I’d hit it,” and “‘Girl, you walk like a bitch’ When I was ten, someone said that.” Audience participation was encouraged again during “Apple,” when the crew selected one fan to perform the viral dance to be shown on screen for the entire arena (Boston’s winner was a delightfully flamboyant young man dressed in a wine-stained tank top, referencing a scene in the “360” music video.)
This overarching theme of empowerment for the crowd ran throughout her set. Songs like “Sympathy is a knife” and “Spring breakers” provided an opportunity for cathartic rage that literally shook the floor of TD Garden. Charli also encouraged the crowd to embrace their sexuality during her unapologetically explicit tracks like “Track 10” and “Vroom Vroom.” The energy of Charli’s performance is perhaps best summed up by the last song she performed solo for the evening, the 2012 smash hit “I Love It,” where Charli is credited as a feature on the track. While other artists in Charli’s position might shy away from performing a twelve-year-old song more associated with high school dances than hardcore clubs, she sang and danced with the same enthusiasm and erratic sexiness she had all night. The audience matched Charli’s energy, and together artist and fan created an incredible moment of nostalgia, self-acceptance, and reckless joy.
Although Troye and Charli’s performances were quite well matched sonically, the visual differences between their sets were at times quite stark. While Troye almost always appeared with his backup dancers and occasionally set pieces as well, Charli performed alone on stage for all but around four songs throughout the evening. Especially at the beginning, Charli chose to focus more on strutting around the stage than dancing. While it was nice for the whole audience to get a little bit of face time with the artist, the lack of more intricate choreography sometimes made her performance feel too small for the cavernous atmosphere of the 19,000+ person arena. This impression was exacerbated by Troye’s bigger, in both size and energy, performance. By the middle of the show, however, Charli made use of wardrobe changes and more involved choreography, both of which helped her performance feel fuller and more complete.
Despite the elaborate choreography and numerous costume changes, the SWEAT Tour never took itself too seriously. Charli admitted to a wardrobe malfunction over an auto-tuned mic, and at one point Troye was giggling so hard as he and his dancers mimed getting hot and heavy that he could barely sing. He also gave us a shoutout, telling the audience “I’m trying to find a boy from Harvard” (I’m sure volunteers were lining up in his DM’s). I left TD Garden drenched in sweat, yes, but also filled with a sense of joy and community, and the overwhelming urge to make out with someone (I am also accepting volunteers in my DM’s).
Ellen Mollerus ’26 (ellenmollerus@college.harvard.edu) would also like Charli to call her if she’s with it.