P eople are dancing to a song they don’t know, with flower garlands in their hair and their arms around their friends. This reaction to Fairy Dance, an unreleased track written about the community that has sprung up around her music, says a lot about the moment Paris Paloma finds herself in, and tonight’s show feels for all the world like a stepping stone to bigger things.
Throughout, Paloma leans in to the built-in drama of songs from her second album, The Fatal Flaw, which pairs ornate folk arrangements with the sort of arena-sized alt-pop production favoured by Florence + the Machine. With a sculpture inspired by surrealist Ithell Colquhoun ’s Tree of Veins dominating the stage, she falls to her knees to deliver high notes and seeks out wind machines at the prow of the stage, her flowing crimson dress buffeted as if on a wintry moor.
Building upon the ground staked out by her breakout single Labour, her set melds timely feminist fury with open-ended questions about culture and identity. Particular disdain is reserved for tech bros, manosphere influencers and their lickspittles, with Good Girl’s “I will break your nose” payoff shouted out from the stalls with venom. When it ends, Paloma is in a heap on the floor, spent from pogoing.
While less pugilistic, Rothko is equally effective. Paloma wraps a teenage encounter with one of the artist’s paintings in a patient melody, her failure to cry at the sight of it seemingly confirming her belief that she is broken. There is a little of Patti Smith in her desire to be awestruck by art, even if the punk pioneer’s abrasive sonic approach is nowhere to be heard.
But there is plenty to be said for airing these sentiments in an accessible fashion. It would be easy to knock Paloma’s earnestness, particularly in the face of day-to-day awfulness, but she has a point about celebrating the stuff that brings us together. “I won’t let you take it from me,” she belts during Miyazaki, framing creativity as a base need in the face of AI evangelists. That her voice is drowned out by the crowd is something.
