Live Review: Remi Wolf - O2 Academy Brixton, London 05/12/2024
On a rainy Thursday night in Brixton, Remi Wolf arrived to ensure her audience couldn’t tell the difference between the sweat and rain on their clothes.
The high-energy night was kicked off by a member of Remi Wolf’s band and artist in her own right, Maddie Jay who was donning a Nirvana shirt playing alongside a drummer and guitarist. A very different three piece took to the stage here as the audience was treated to ethereal pop-indie tracks from Jay’s solo material. Jay also gently experimented with some cool sampling techniques as she used the crowds screams to loop over a track. As she parted she said: “My name is Maddie Jay and I’ll be back in 20 minutes”.
20 minutes later…
Maddie Jay returns! This time, with a band 5-strong followed by the star of the night, Remi Wolf who set the goofy-silly tone of the evening as a vocal played “Welcome to my show” over the speakers. The start to an incredible live performance.
Wolf kickstarted the show with Cherries & Cream off her latest album, Big Ideas which has made several “Best of 2024” lists, most notably NPR ranked it amongst their top 50 albums. It’s not hard to see why when you feel the energy pouring off of the stage. Wolf does not stop for the hour and a half she’s on stage. She is shaking her booty, kicking her legs high to the ceiling and even leading the band through group choreography.
After playing a few Big Ideas tracks (Cherries & Cream, Cinderella and Pitiful), she took time to thank her fans for giving her a platform and ensured that the energy between herself and her fans was calibrating at a level suitable for a “symbiotic community of grace”.
Wolf then treated all the sexy little mamas in the room to a rousing rendition of her hit song Liz off her debut album, Juno. This was followed by one of the biggest new tracks, Kangaroo which was made all the more gargantuan as Remi took over the drum kit and filling the academy with a solo that would make John Bonham proud.
Her band also took their moments to experience playing with each other (that’s just as sexy as it sounds), with the guitarists playing solos together while practically touching strings. Everyone on stage looked as though they were having the times of their lives completely filling the room with an atmosphere of joy.
Wolf’s impressive and unique vocals flew through the room like fireworks. The crowd even got the chance to put words in her mouth. Halfway through the night Wolf asks the crowd to give her three words to improvise into a song: “Rosy”, “Woody”, and “Capricorn”. The next five minutes was as bewilderingly fun as it was impressive and Wolf, known for her catchy hooks, created a song which invited the audience to sing-along- mind blown!
The night picked up the pace as Wolf took us through more upbeat songs like Toro, Disco Man and Soup. Toro saw her lead her band through group choreography, which was funny, sexy and cute in equal measures. Her band are clearly the best of friends and for a few hours that audience was allowed to be friends with them too.
Wolf didn’t waste anyone’s time with an overdrawn encore, she exited the stage and was back, immediately jumping into her most well-known track, Photo ID which had the whole crowd jumping up-and-down for more.
A night of sexily epic proportions, Remi Wolf dominated the stage and everyone in Brixton Academy was invited to the disco.
Words by Adam Mir
Photography by Sam Strutt
