Doja Cat’s recent performances balance pop-rap beginnings with darker, rock-leaning material. Her fifth album Vie reflects tension between a commercial pop image and a more experimental, boundary-pushing self. During the show, she appears in elaborate, theatrical styling and leads a ten-person band through 80s-inflected tracks from Vie and Planet Her. She moves between slow jams and swaggering songs with tight stage control and matching visual details. She then breaks away for a darker, rockier segment focused on Scarlet, performing acrobatic, metal-tinged versions of songs with intense physicality. The set merges both identities into a unified, star-driven performance.
"Last year's fifth album Vie saw her negotiate the tension between the pop persona she once denounced as a cash grab and her true freak artistic self a tension she plays to perfection during tonight's show. After a prelude where Doja hovers above the stage in Klaus Nomi-esque shoulder pads and a 20-metre long train perhaps elaborate trolling aimed at fans who complained about her lack of outfit changes earlier in the tour she arrives fully formed as a purple-clad bandleader for a run of 80s inflected tracks from Vie and 2021's Planet Her."
"Fronting a 10-person band, she's an immediately commanding presence, wearing pasties, a high-waisted bodysuit, tights and gloves, her zebra print microphone matching her heels. She has the look of a scene-kid Prince, the blond of recent shows swapped for an acid green wig. Appropriately, the synergy between her and her band is reminiscent of Purple Rain, or a glam-rock Stop Making Sense. She moves seamlessly between modes and poses, from slow jam Make It Up more muscular live than on record to the swagger of Ain't Shit and Paint the Town Red."
"Doja breaks away from her band for a darker, rockier section, largely devoted to songs from Scarlet. For WYM Freestyle, Wet Vagina and a metal version of Tia Tamera she performs an acrobatic floor show; tongue out, grinding against the mic stand, her tights ripped in the back. Whipping the mic cord around her neck during Demons, she's messy but doesn't miss a note truly the woman whose Celebrity Skin cover was co-signed by Courtney Love."
"By the end of the set she's somehow merged the two modes: both unhinged iconoclast and slick bandleader, a twerking contradiction, a true star. Some lesser pop"
Read at www.theguardian.com
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