{"id":1079,"date":"2024-10-22T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2024-10-22T09:45:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T13:45:14","slug":"third-times-the-charm-clairo-kemba-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/10\/22\/third-times-the-charm-clairo-kemba-live\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Time’s The Charm: Clairo @ Kemba Live"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Claire Cottrill, known professionally as \u2018Clairo\u2019, glides across the stage as the audience cheers. She shares a drink with her band members and grants the audience a coy giggle, turning in sync with her band as they cheer back to the audience. The stage, set with a half cyclorama curved toward the crowd and decorated with warm brown drapery immediately creates an intimate experience. <\/em>Dressed in a romantic yet subtle vintage white Louis Vuitton dress, pastel tights displaying a serene landscape, and dark brown kitten-heeled boots, Clairo charms the audience with her elegance. Everything about her concert environment feels both curated yet effortless, down to the dreamy lighting and way she bats her eyes as she twirls her hair towards the audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to my most recent concert experience with Clairo, I was lucky enough to have seen her twice. I remember first discovering her music, originally classified as bedroom pop, through her Youtube channel where she sang her hit song \u201cPretty Girl\u201d on her bedroom floor. I was in middle school and felt immediately drawn to her whimsical energy and tranquil voice as she sang about things I, a teenage girl, also experienced. Since that moment, she\u2019s hooked me. She appears on my Spotify wrapped almost every year and I take every opportunity to see her in concert. When she released her latest record, Charm<\/em>, I immediately scoured the internet for tour dates and was excited to see that she was coming to Columbus’ Kemba Live!, the same place I had seen her twice before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image credit Cora Hernandez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As you walked up to the venue, you could immediately spot at least twenty pairs of Doc Martens, a fondness for the punk boot being a funny but true stereotype about Clairo\u2019s fan base. Everyone dressed in a similar vintage-inspired, eccentric way and you could feel the excitement buzzing all around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clairo\u2019s opener, Alice Phoebe Lou, was the perfect artist to start off the night with her soft, dream-like voice and mermaid-length hair. It almost felt like she cast a spell on the crowd as she sang, \u201cWitches\u201d and \u201cLover \/\/ Over the Moon\u201d. Creating a calming and ethereal atmosphere as if lulling the hoards of young fans into a trance. Even the security guard in front of me remarked on her graceful mannerisms and lovely voice which paired quite well with her scaled-back set. She seemed to charm the crowd with her sweet words, telling the audience how grateful she was to open for Claire and how she hoped they enjoyed her music. Once she departed from the stage, her spell was broken and it felt as if the audience remembered how excited they were for the anxiously awaited Clairo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After Claire\u2019s drink with her bandmates she started off the set with the opener of Charm, <\/em>\u201cNomad\u201d. It truly set the scene for the rest of the show. It felt like we were following her on her nomadic journey. She then followed this with two more of her new songs, \u201cSecond Nature\u201d and \u201cThank you\u201d bewitching the audience with the groovy jazz and heart-felt lyricism. She swayed gently as a moon-shaped light descended above the dimly lit stage, adding a soft, warm hue to the whole set. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Image credit Cora Hernandez. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She followed a few of her older and more popular tracks, \u201cSoftly\u201d, \u201cFlaming Hot Cheetos\u201d and \u201cHow – demo\u201d. The audience chanted along to the lyrics. It felt as if everyone was having flashbacks to their younger selves listening to these songs for the first time. The joy was palpable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Continuing with a deeper cut, \u201cBambi\u201d from her second LP, Sling, <\/em>Claire brought the audience back to a zen, melancholy state more similar to that of Charm<\/em>\u2019s <\/em>\u201cTerrapin\u201d. She then continued with another Charm<\/em> track, \u201cAdd Up My Love\u201d, and pumped the crowd up with its very-chantable lyrics. The entire crowd grooved along. She then played another throwback from her first LP, Immunity, <\/em>\u201cNorth\u201d. She brought the energy down with a string of melancholic tracks: \u201cEcho\u201d, \u201cGlory of the Snow\u201d, \u201cSlow Dance\u201d, \u201cPartridge\u201d and \u201cPier 4\u201d. These songs touch on the sometime inability of profound love to overcome interpersonal challenges. Clairo sang, \u201cOne of these days, I know that that you might come back to me\u201d. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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She finished off the concert with a few of her more up-beat hits as she asked the audience to dance with her. As her audience jived to \u201c4EVER\u201d, \u201cAmoeba\u201d, \u201cBags\u201d, \u201cSexy to Someone\u201d and \u201cJuna\u201d she left fans singing \u201cYou make me wanna go dancing\u201d joyfully. Every track carried both sadness and grace, the setlist even bringing some fans to tears. Ending the show with \u201cJuna\u201d was a brilliant choice. One of her most blissful songs, it ended the show on a euphoric note. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image credit Cora Hernandez. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Though Claire and her team did an amazing job with making the show feel intimate, the closed-off stage meant that fans sitting on both the far right and left sides had no way of viewing the stage. This caused the people to scramble to a place to see Clairo, leaving the middle section of the pit rather cramped. Once Claire and her dreamy bandmates began to play, it seemed as if the crowd forgot how close they were to the strangers next to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clairo\u2019s third live show truly was the charm. Her evident growth as a performer resonated not just in her confidence and stage presence, but in her deeper connection with the audience. She drew an animal tattoo for a fan, sang happy birthday to another, and interacted with the crowd in ways I hadn\u2019t seen before. The lighting, atmosphere, and her enchanting set made for a night I\u2019ll always remember.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claire Cottrill, known professionally as \u2018Clairo\u2019, glides across the stage as the audience cheers. She shares a drink with her band members and grants the audience a coy giggle, turning in sync with her band as they cheer back to the audience. The stage, set with a half cyclorama curved toward the crowd and decorated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[24,27,19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}