Clairo kicked off her five-night residency at Webster Hall on Friday, September 14th to a sold-out crowd. Webster Hall is the perfect venue to experience Clairo’s music, and more artists should prioritize smaller venues like this. Sure, she’s playing four extra shows to sell the same amount of tickets as she would in an arena, but the difference in experience is staggering.
While Chappell Roan is currently making headlines for setting boundaries with fans, Clairo is just coming off a three-year hiatus with her new album Charm due to her own experiences with people repeatedly invading her privacy. Finding a way to comfortably interact with fans at shows and online should be a priority for any artist. Clairo deserves huge props for her commitment to doing things in a way that feels comfortable for her.
Webster Hall was packed before Frankie Cosmos opened, with people overflowing through the side doors of the main ballroom and lining the balcony. Frankie Cosmos’ sound has developed nicely over the past years, with better production and instrumentation. In particular, her drummer injects some extra funk into the mellower songs. Even though Frankie Cosmos was a late addition to the Webster Hall shows, Greta Kline said she was happy to see people outside her fanbase singing along.
Clairo and her ensemble entered the stage single file with a tray of glasses to cheers and sat down on the set for a little pre-show drink. As she poured wine and handed it to her bandmates, Clairo, in her headphones, black dress with gold ribbons, black tights, and heeled loafers, talked quietly with her ensemble before they eventually clambered to their designated positions on the stage’s tiered platforms covered in green carpet. The stage held a staggering amount of instruments to be used over the show’s hour and a half runtime with a flute, chimes, sax, electric guitar, nylon string acoustic guitar, bass guitar, a real piano on the stage, synths, and a drum machine on an antique table next to Clairo for her song “4Ever.”
Clairo played through the entirety of her excellent new album, Charm, interspersed with some of her fan favorites. Charm adds much more intrigue to Claro’s sound, incorporating jazzy layered synths and a laid-back West Coast cabana vibe on some tracks such as the album’s opener “Nomad” and “Glory of the Snow.” Clairo takes this sound further with a modern electronic spin on tracks like “Sexy to Someone” and “Echo.” “Echo” specifically features a jaunty little synth that harkens back to the likes of Broadcast.
After four songs she requested the lighting tech turn off the front lights and spent most of the show backlit by the giant light handing over the middle of the stage. She seemed reserved at the beginning, but by the second half of the show, she found her groove, and you could tell she was enjoying playing in her home city. A fan held up a red and white ringer tee they made for her that said “Clairo is For Lovers,” and Clairo loved it, saying she would wear it to bed that night. That’s probably the only fan out there who can say they’ve given an artist their favorite pajama tee.
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