O2 City Hall: a small building of flirtatious grandeur nestled between the chaotic lanes of Newcastle’s city centre. As per most concerts, on Tuesday night, as the crowd grew restless and the air grew heavy, yet another group took to the stage.
Chvrches‘ lead singer, Lauren Mayberry, broke the hushed tones of eager fans when she stormed onto centre stage with a fiery aura of passion, wearing what can only be described as the dress of the year. A deep, glowing red bejewelled costume with tiny sequins adorning her outfit, clashing violently, yet also beautifully, with her long, blonde hair. Taking to the mic, Mayberry spoke about a certain “kinship with the people of Newcastle and the people of Glasgow”, before crouching down before the seemingly-only fan on stage to partition what had become a rather sweaty mop.
Chvrches Screen Violence tour was founded on the horrors of modern technology, using eerie beats and ballad-like vocals to reiterate the terrors lying behind our screens. Whilst ‘He Said She Said’ explores society’s contradictory expectations of women, ‘Good Girls’ focuses on cancel culture and condemning our idols.
“In the final cut / In the final scene / There’s a final girl / And you know that she should be screaming.” Chvrches takes a more gothic approach to their ‘Final Girl’ single, exploring notions of resilience and perseverance, with the Final Girl mirroring the stereotypical damsel in distress that so often blooms from gothic tales. Leaving the stage with her band producing a pulsating beat, Lauren Mayberry returned from backstage with blood-covered arms; an eerie twist to an otherwise lively concert, playing victim to screen violence.
Survival, despite the struggles of twenty-first-century living, is an overarching theme of this Screen Violence tour. These “violent delights” seem to seep claustrophobically into the panic-stricken arms of the holder, with feelings of paralysis and death frequent in both a lyrical and musical sense. “I couldn’t scream / I couldn’t cry” accompanied a jittery drumming beat, broken only by “These violent delights”, which “Keep creeping into my nights.”
Whilst their concert placed emphasis on technology’s negative attributes, Chvrches also took to re-assembling old tracks in a bid to welcome back old friends.
“Wasn’t it gonna be fun and wasn’t it gonna be new” sang Lauren Mayberry, accompanying a rather cheeky instrumental on the keyboard. Whilst ‘Never Say Die’ features on their 2018 Love Is Dead album, their 2022 Screen Violence tour made an exception, grabbing the crowd by its memorable tones with “Didn’t you say that / didn’t you say that”.
I’m not one for soppy rom-coms, but as the methodic beat of ‘Never Say Die’ reverberated throughout the room, I locked eyes on a young couple embracing each other, rocking along to “Never, never, never, ever / Never, ever, ever say die.” The love this couple shared off-stage clearly resonated with the deep-rooted lyrics of this Chvrches classic.
From the start, Chvrches captivated their audience with blood and soul, and this didn’t stop until their final song; the much-loved timeless classic, ‘Recover’, from their 2013 album The Bones Of What You Believe. “I’ll give you one more chance to say / We can change our old ways” quietly spoke to the crowd in the midst of the latest crisis in Ukraine. As the group rocked to ‘Recover’, the laser show on stage reflected the subtle colours of blue and yellow, promoting the band’s solidarity with Ukraine.
Chvrches resurrected the old and chanted the new, leaving fans awestruck by their creative extravagance. What began as a low hummer of excitement soon turned into a raucous scene of joy and exhilaration as pop met gothic.
Words by Maddy Raine
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