Brooklyn Storehouse, New York City
The viral star electrified Brooklyn with winking visuals, self-aware humor and a slew of special guests
From the look of the crowd at PinkPantheress’s show in Brooklyn last night, you’d be forgiven for thinking that King Charles had extended his recent trip to New York. The crowd that snaked its way through a never-ending circuit of cracked asphalt and grimy water on their way to Brooklyn Storehouse wore union jacks and tartan miniskirts, which you could imagine would be in line with royal protocol for how to dress when a sovereign visits a warehouse rave.
PinkPantheress is certainly royalty among a vast swath of young, terminally online people; a pop princess who is mainstream enough to clinch top billing at Coachella and perform on primetime TV, but whose taste has always leaned more niche and left-field than anything that would ever go platinum. Or would it? Pop music is always in a state of flux but we’re living through an interesting period of realignment. Chalk it up to AI backlash, a floundering music industry or fatigue with chart-gaming reindeer games, but lately a raft of musicians who’d played nice for years have seen big rewards going for broke with wildly adventurous work. Performers like Slayyyter, Zara Larsson and Jade, who’d once been siloed off as “pop’s middle class” or incarcerated in the “Khia asylum” have been rewarded twice over for their boldness with both critical acclaim and charting hits. PinkPantheress is something of a figurehead among these artists and one of its brightest hopes. Her show yesterday night at Brooklyn Storehouse doubled as a flex of her star power and a mini-music festival highlighting a wave of like-minded musicians who are just as poised to break out.
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