Clairo and Arlo Parks Bring Bedroom Pop to Radio City Music Hall’s Big Stage: Concert Review
variety.comJem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe transition from bedroom pop to one of New York’s biggest stages is not an easy one — the intimate sound and emotions of the loosely defined style are almost the polar opposite of the big gestures and loud volume it takes to fill a major venue.
Yet two of the genre’s most popular (and youngest) artists, Clairo and Arlo Parks, did it with ease Thursday night before an impressively full crowd at New York’s historic, 6,000-capacity Radio City Music Hall.Parks, 21 — who is nominated for two 2022 Grammys — is already a major star in her native England and is the more animated performer of the two, although Thursday’s show represented a big step up from her last area performance (at the 650-capacity Music Hall of Williamsburg in September).
Dancing in a loose and unhurried fashion, she eased her five-piece band through a 40-minute set containing most of her warm and assured debut album, “Collapsed in Sunbeams,” adding her latest single, “Softly,” before the finale of what has become her signature song, “Hope,” with its uplifting chorus: “You’re not alonе, like you think you are/ We all havе scars, I know it’s hard/ You’re not alone.” A post shared by Jem Aswad (@jemaswad)Clairo’s onstage demeanor is as low-key as her soft voice, and she remarked on several occasions that the “surreal” show was the largest she and her band had ever headlined.
Indeed, it’s been a long and surreal journey for the 23-year-old singer, who began releasing songs online nearly a decade ago and saw her “Pretty Girl” become a viral smash during her freshman year of college; she finished out the semester and almost immediately went on tour with Dua Lipa.
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