With acts like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift headlining day one of Rock in Rio’s pop weekend, Charli XCX’s brazen, foul-mouthed set gave the squeaky-clean evening a dose of badassery.
Starting 13 minutes past schedule, Charlie’s three-piece band was already well into “Sucker” when the singer ran on stage in a leather jacket and silky black dress, dropping F-bombs left and right. She owned the stage with raw, punk energy that was completely absent during her previous Vegas gig at Life Is Beautiful. Friday night, a few things are in Charli’s favor. The weather isn’t excruciatingly hot like that day during LIB, which made for a lifeless performance and a cranky, exhausted pop star. Her crowd has also grown exponentially from that October set. “Vegas! What the f*ck is up? Let me hear you scream!” she yells during “I Love It,” the Icona Pop single she guested on and also wrote.
Charli played 14 songs in total, delivering a strong set driven by the singer’s feminist, punk-rock ethos. “This song is for all the ladies—all the people with the pussies. This song is about pussy power motherf*cker!” she screams before diving into “Body of My Own.”
For the second to last song, she does her best Iggy Azalea impersonation, rapping “Fancy” in its entirety. It feels more Limp Bizkit than Iggy, but if Charli XCX can make rap-rock sound cool, she can do just about anything.
Live looping vocal and instrumental samples may not be anything new, but among artists who litter their sets with backing tracks, Ed Sheeran stands out for his unique pop sensibilities. Literally a one-man show, the guitarist blended rap, soul and acoustic-driven rock for more than an hour during his Rock in Rio set.
Sheeran opened to a huge crowd with “I’m A Mess” from 2014’s X, followed by “Lego House,” from his debut studio album +. “By the end, hopefully we’ve all lost our voices by singing,” he said. For the next hour, he raps, croons, drums on his acoustic guitar and then abandons said guitar to serenade the crowd, using only his voice as instrumentation, and especially well on standout track “Bloodstream.” Comparisons to Jason Mraz are unavoidable, but Sheeran’s soulful mashups of familiar hits (Blackstreet’s “No Diggity,” Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”) and folk-influenced pop give him an undeniable edge that really comes alive once his set is at full tilt.
Following Sheeran’s performance and minutes before Taylor Swift’s set, there was a proposal on the main stage, followed by commercials and a short tribute to B.B. King. At 11:31 p.m., a giant black curtain with a boom box graphic dropped to the floor and the bracelets handed to us upon entry all began flashing with blue light.
“Good evening Las Vegas, welcome to Rock in Rio 2015. We begin our story in New York,” Swift says stiffly during “Welcome to New York.” Her blue skirt, sequined jacket and glittery black crop top sparkle as she slinks around the stage with an entourage of male dancers dressed in all white. Throughout the set Swift moved through a number of costume changes. There were acts with storylines and monologues that introduced nearly every song, and she made multiple appearances in the middle of the crowd, performing on a 50-foot platform so nearly everyone could get a glimpse. Sometimes, she played video of celebrity friends Lena Dunham, Selena Gomez, Lily Aldridge, Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss and Haim, talking about how cool and humble and awesome she is—which is actually the opposite of humble—but she gets a pass because she’s Taylor Swift. The best line was delivered by Dunham: “I’m surprised when she walks down the street stray cats don’t follow her like the patron saint.”
The 18-song set ran for two hours and featured some older hits like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” (where she played electric guitar), an ‘80s synth-rock redux of “Love Story,” and even a duet with Sheeran. But the show wasn’t without major mishaps—her vocals kept cutting out and the mix was way too quiet. Still, the highlights outweighed the pitfalls, like when that giant platform rose above the crowd with Swift tethered to the stage as it rotated slowly above a sea of fans during the finale, “Shake It Off.”
By the time her headlining set ended at 1:30 a.m., a chunk of the crowd had cleared out, probably due to sound issues. But those who stayed enjoyed a one-of-a-kind performance—fireworks and all—and the chance to see the pop princess in all her glittering glory.
