Olivia Dean

When the very first note of ‘Nice To Each Other’ rang out across the 23 thousand strong Manchester crowd, accompanied by Olivia’s silhouette projected onto huge curtains, the vibe of the entire night was set. Classic, but by no means old-fashioned.

The stage set-up seemed simple at first, the sleek stage housing her (very impressive) live band and brass section. As the show progressed, the visual projections onto the curtains proved to be the perfect way to complement the songs rather than overpower them. Tracks like ‘Time’ and ‘Ladies Room’ were the best examples of this, with a huge deep red aura following Olivia around the stage for the powerful ‘Time’ and some well-deployed disco balls filling the arena during the latter.

A flower-shaped B-stage was present about halfway through the audience, which she walked through the crowd to get to and do a few stripped back numbers later in the set. 

Many artists who get to this level of touring parade about on stage saying how grateful they are to be playing arenas, but Olivia genuinely did seem to be thrilled for every moment of the set. During several of the songs you could hear her smile through the vocals, and during a touching rendition of The Art Of Loving track ‘Loud’ she had to stop herself crying. The audience in Manchester reflected this emotion, singing back almost every word throughout the evening – to the point that if you weren’t familiar with her songs when attending, you would struggle to pick out the hits versus the deeper album cuts.

Olivia’s live vocals truly elevated the songs to a new level during the evening’s performance. An unexpected but not out-of-place cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’ gave the band (and many of the dancing dads in attendance) a chance to show off, while the more stripped-back moments like ‘Messy’ from her debut album and ‘A Couple Minutes’ from her latest made her voice the focus.

Another thing that helped with the overall buoyant feeling of the night was how the crowd seemed to match the retro aesthetic of the production; despite her very recent chart success and virality, Olivia’s show was not plagued by the usual constant sea of phones, bar a very few moments in the set (of course everyone wanted a clip of ‘Dive’ and ‘Man I Need’). She pleaded earlier on for everyone to have fun and be present - apparently everyone took notice. Everyone was up and actually dancing for the majority of the set, even back in the seats like I was.

Earlier this year Olivia won ‘Best New Artist’ at the Grammys and won four awards at the BRITs. This show seriously made it hard to argue against those decisions.