“I know how to make the hard things look really easy,” Addison Rae tells the O2 Academy Brixton crowd, dancing around the stage in a dazzling silver bikini and knee-high boots. Right now, she’s deep in a performance of ‘High Fashion’, her seductive single that has her lusting after shoes and designer clothes rather than sex or romance. As she sings that line, though, halfway through the first of two sold-out nights at the south London venue, she could easily be making a statement about her music career so far.
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Becoming a pop star in 2025 isn’t all that easy, especially not one who can instantly command respect with only a clutch of songs or give their image a complete 180 from social media influencer to authentically cool icon-in-waiting with tons of cultural cachet. Yet Rae has done just that – a transformation she only truly got into gear with 12 months ago when she released ‘Diet Pepsi’, the first single from her eventual debut album, ‘Addison’. There’s proof of it woven into tonight’s show, from when she brings two fans, dressed in outfits mimicking some of her past looks, on stage to cover Charli XCX’s ‘Von Dutch’, to the cool hints she drops throughout her set – a snippet of an Arca remix of ‘Obsessed’ here, a Britney Spears-referencing version of 2023’s ‘I Got It Bad’ there.
Rae also makes the art of looking like a polished pop performer look phenomenally simple. Before she kicked off her headline UK and Ireland tour in Dublin earlier this week (August 25), she’d only played live a handful of times – two album release celebrations at The Box in New York and London, supporting Lana Del Rey at Wembley Stadium in July, and an intimate Grammy Museum showcase in Los Angeles. Somehow, tonight at Brixton, she looks like a star who’s been performing for screaming crowds for years, the only giveaway that she hasn’t when she giddily squeals with her fans between songs. “Wow, you’re so loud!” she exclaims at one point. “I feel so lucky to be here; it’s such a dream come true.”
When she’s not exuberantly thanking the crowd in front of her, Rae delivers a euphoric hour-long set of perfect pop. Before she hits the stage, wrought iron gates with an A in the middle cover the stage, pulled open by dancers in tiny Spring Breakers-neon outfits. When Rae joins them, first appearing on a podium in the back right corner as ‘Fame Is A Gun’ begins, she’s dressed in a dark blue swing dress. By the song’s end, the dancers have helped her out of the dress, revealing her own fluorescent look beneath – a symbol, perhaps, for giving herself over to celebrity and status.
‘Summer Forever’ is beautiful, blissful pop that ends with Rae and male dancer Patrick on the floor, faces almost touching. “Oh my god, Patrick! I might even say that was to die for, but I’m not looking for anything serious right now,” the star says after – a campy line that encroaches on cheesy territory when you realise the next song on the setlist is her 2023 track ‘2 Die 4’. It’s one of the only blips of the night, along with the apparent dichotomy between the themes of the show. Rae appears to try to mix Southern gothic imagery with vapid LA visuals – a nod to her youth in Louisiana and now-home in California – but there’s little in the way of narrative to make them work cohesively together, leaving things a little confused.
That doesn’t stop the crowd from going berserk at every opportunity, and it’s no surprise that the singles receive the most rapturous responses tonight, each word of ‘Aquamarine’, ‘Headphones On’ and ‘Diet Pepsi’ yelled back at Rae with a fervour usually reserved for much longer-established artists. The latter dials up the drama one last time, Rae sitting on the podium, now in the middle of the stage, in a corset and puffy tulle skirt. The lights blackout for the fake ending, and when they turn back on for the key change, she’s standing triumphant, the screen behind her transformed into a cascading torrent of falling sparks. Once again, she’s made the hard things look really easy.
Addison Rae played:
‘Fame Is A Gun’
‘I Got It Bad’
‘New York’
‘Summer Forever’
‘2 Die 4’
‘Von Dutch’
‘In The Rain’
‘High Fashion’
‘Aquamarine’
‘Headphones On’
‘Money Is Everything’
‘Obsessed’
‘Times Like These’
‘Diet Pepsi’