Charli xcx at LIDO Festival in London review: Round two of ‘brat summer’ begins now
"Will ‘brat summer’ ever really be over? No, and nor should it be," writes Attitude's Richard Burn
By Richard Burn
The penultimate day of LIDO Festival 2025 was always going to be a banger. Little did we know what we were going to be in for. A team of expertly curated artists, including the likes of Rose Gray, Kelly Lee Owens and Gesaffelstein set headliner Charli xcx up for success. Honestly, never has a London day festival line-up been so well put together.
The headline slot began with the ever-distressed brat wall falling to the sound of the ‘365’ remix. As expected, the crowd, full of bright green, goes wild in a passionate frenzy. We were in for a wild ride (editor, please insert a ‘Vroom Vroom’ pun here).
The setlist doesn’t disappoint as xcx punches through brat favourites like ‘Sympathy is a knife’, ‘Guess’ and deeper cuts. The most impressive part of all this being the other song choices included. The other tracks chosen were precursors to what xcx was always going to end up making with brat. The virality of how i’m feeling now album track ‘party 4 u’ is a true testament to this. Adding it to the setlist was a genius move.
Due to the nature of the show being outside during the summer, its main feature (besides xcx’s autotuned mic) of the hyperstimulating lighting doesn’t have quite the same impact as it would in a dark arena.
Although fans were expecting Lorde to be brought out for ‘Girl, so confusing’ (London audiences have always been so spoilt), xcx did bring out Bladee and brat producer A. G. Cook for the remix of ‘Rewind’. Ironically, xcx had to rewind to restart ‘Rewind’ as the original version started playing by mistake.
A show tradition, Amelia Dimoldenberg was the Apple Girl for viral hit ‘Apple’. Many may say that Dimoldenberg was serving ‘go girl, give us nothing,’ but that is just her schtick. As long as she had fun, that’s the main thing!
The show ends with xcx contemplating whether brat should be over and the existential dread over what that that could mean for her.
Will ‘brat summer’ ever really be over? No, and nor should it be.