As the lights glow a soft orange and a piano is rolled onto the O2 stage, Robyn opens up to the audience before her. “I used to feel so embarrassed about writing these sad love songs. I’m like, ‘Grow up!’” she laughs. “But I feel like life is pretty embarrassing.”
She’s not wrong, but tonight (July 3), the Swedish pop superstar puts on a show that not only embraces every part of life, but is empowered by it. Whether she’s portraying the kind of outsized, dramatic feelings love can elicit or the carnal desires that women are often conditioned to keep private, on stage, Robyn makes everything feel liberating.
She’s back in London (her “favourite city in the world”) as part of her ‘Sexistential’ tour, the live accompaniment to an album that explored love and sex in characteristic Robyn form – sometimes yearning, sometimes silly, and almost always turning those feelings into grade A bangers. Early on, ‘Talk To Me’ shines a light on the sexy power of communication, while the album’s title track finds Robyn stepping off stage and greeting the front rows at the barrier as they yell back lines about lusting after Adam Driver and being “”.
