Charli XCX Turns Kia Forum Into a Nonstop Rave

Charli XCX brought her North American arena tour to Los Angeles for a two-night stand at Kia Forum, and the result was less a conventional pop concert than a full-body immersion in club culture, runway fashion and high-wattage spectacle. Across roughly one hour and 40 minutes, the singer kept the crowd standing, dancing and shouting along as she moved through material from her latest album, Music, Fashion, Film, and her blockbuster BRAT era. The weekend shows were built around surprise guests, and Charli delivered them: Chappell Roan, PinkPantheress, Adéla and The Dare all appeared across the two nights.

The pacing was relentless. Charli did very little talking, preferring to let the music, lighting and choreography carry the evening. When she did address the audience on the second night, she described the Los Angeles shows as special, a brief moment of warmth inside a production that otherwise behaved like a sprint through a nightclub. Fans on the floor and in the seated sections alike were on their feet for nearly the entire performance, turning the arena into a mass of movement.

Key Facts

• Charli XCX played two nights at Kia Forum in Los Angeles on her North American arena tour.
• Surprise guests included Chappell Roan, PinkPantheress, Adéla and The Dare.
• Roan joined Charli for "Boom Clap," which Charli had not performed live in three years.
• PinkPantheress performed "Stateside," The Dare joined for "Guess," and Adéla performed her viral hit "Nicole Kidman."
• The show featured "xcx" underwear falling from the ceiling, pyrotechnics, a runway segment and no encore.
• Charli closed with "No One Lasts Forever," featuring a spoken outro by filmmaker David Cronenberg and the onscreen phrase "OBLIVION IS FREEDOM."
• The tour opened September 11 in Philadelphia with 12 dates; next stops included Glendale, Arizona, and Las Vegas before a European run after the new year.

A Two-Night Stand Built Like a Club Night

From the start, the Los Angeles dates were designed to feel like an event rather than a standard tour stop. Opening act Underscores brought early energy and got the crowd on its feet before Charli appeared promptly at 9 p.m. Backed by a band and a group of backup dancers, she opened with "Rock Music," the lead single from Music, Fashion, Film, and quickly established the show's central tension: the polish of an arena production paired with the sweat and spontaneity of a rave.

The stage used a pyramid-style platform that created the illusion of four levels, giving Charli, her band and her dancers room to move vertically as well as across the stage. The design allowed the performance to shift scale in an instant, from close-up intensity to full-arena spectacle. During the shopping-themed song "Card Declined," the stage became a makeshift runway, with dancers strutting behind Charli down a catwalk lined with lights that rose from the floor. At different points in the night, the room felt like a rave, a nightclub, a fashion show or all three at once.

That chameleonic quality has become central to Charli's live identity. Since her early releases, she has moved between pop, punk, electronic music and club-facing sounds, and her tours have increasingly reflected that history. The arena setting did not soften the edges. Instead, it amplified them. The crowd was not treated as a passive audience but as part of the production, with the floor section functioning as a dance floor and the seated areas leaning forward into the action.

Chappell Roan and the Return of "Boom Clap"

The first major guest of the weekend was Chappell Roan, who joined Charli onstage for "Boom Clap." The song, a breakthrough pop hit from Charli's earlier era, had not been performed live by her in three years. Charli explained the choice to the audience by saying that every night on tour she plays an old song, and when she asked a friend to sing one with her, the friend agreed only if it was this particular track. The moment gave the arena a burst of nostalgia while also underlining how Charli's career has expanded across distinct chapters.

Roan's appearance also reflected the current pop landscape, in which both artists occupy a space between critical acclaim, devoted fan bases and major mainstream visibility. Roan has become one of the most talked-about live performers of the moment, and her presence at the Kia Forum turned a tour stop into a crossover event. The collaboration was brief but potent, a bridge between Charli's long-running pop history and the newer generation of artists who have cited her influence.

PinkPantheress, The Dare and a Shower of "xcx" Underwear

Later on the first night, PinkPantheress came out to perform her own song "Stateside," adding another jolt of contemporary pop and club-adjacent energy to the set. The Dare, who produced Charli's BRAT hit "Guess," also joined her for that song. During the performance, fans in the floor section were treated to underwear emblazoned with "xcx" falling from the ceiling and shooting out of cannons, a regular feature of Charli's shows that ties back to the song's music video and its cheeky lyrics about guessing the color of her underwear.

The moment was playful, chaotic and entirely in keeping with Charli's approach to pop stardom: high-concept, self-aware and willing to turn a lyric into a physical gag. One attendee was seen leaving the venue twirling the garment in the air, clearly delighted by the souvenir. It was the kind of detail that turns a concert into a shared story, the sort of thing fans compare notes about afterward.

Adéla, Madonna and the Sunday Set

Sunday's show brought rising pop star Adéla, who performed her viral hit "Nicole Kidman." The appearance fit the weekend's pattern of pairing Charli with artists at different stages of their careers, from established names to newer acts with rapidly growing audiences. There was no Madonna sighting, despite speculation, though Madonna's new collaboration with Charli, "Danceteria Afterhours," played at the end as concertgoers were leaving the venue. The song choice served as a final club-inflected farewell, extending the night's atmosphere beyond the stage.

The guest list was not the only draw. Charli's setlist drew heavily from Music, Fashion, Film, including "SS26," "Wink Wink" and "Camera," while also making room for BRAT-era songs such as "Apple," "365," "Von Dutch," "Club Classics" and "Sympathy Is a Knife." She also surprised the crowd with the tour debut of "Constant Repeat," a track from her 2022 album CRASH. The mix of new material and recent favorites gave the show a sense of forward motion without ignoring the records that had brought her to arenas.

A Visual Production of Lights, Fire and Fashion

One of the most impressive elements of the night was the lighting and pyrotechnics design. Spotlights, strobe lights, fire and fireworks combined to create a dramatic visual display that blended seamlessly with the songs rather than competing with them. At one point, Charli was lit in quickly alternating blue and red lights, producing a dazzling, disorienting effect that matched the intensity of the music.

The production understood that Charli's catalog thrives on contrast: the euphoric and the anxious, the glamorous and the abrasive, the club-ready and the emotionally exposed. The staging kept shifting to reflect that. The runway segment during "Card Declined" leaned into fashion and commerce, while the heavier use of strobes and fire pushed the show toward the physical sensation of a rave. The result was a concert that felt carefully constructed but never stiff.

A Stark Finale and a Tour in Motion

Charli closed the show with Music, Fashion, Film's "No One Lasts Forever," a choice that turned the evening's high-energy arc toward something more somber. The outro lyrics, spoken by filmmaker David Cronenberg, were displayed on the big screens as Charli and her dancers stood still and looked into the crowd during the lengthy moment. Cronenberg's voice declared, "They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever," and the final words, "OBLIVION IS FREEDOM," lingered onscreen before the lights went on.

There was no encore, but the show did not need one. The abrupt ending felt intentional, a powerful punctuation mark after nearly two hours of movement. It also reinforced Charli's willingness to treat pop performance as a space for ideas as well as hits, mixing hedonism with a stark reminder of impermanence.

The Los Angeles dates were part of a North American arena tour that kicked off September 11 in Philadelphia with 12 dates on the schedule. Next up were Glendale, Arizona, on Wednesday and Las Vegas on Friday, with a European leg to follow after the new year. If the Kia Forum shows were any indication, Charli's tour is less a victory lap than a continuing experiment in what a pop concert can be: part rave, part runway, part catharsis and entirely built for the room it occupies.

Source:MSN News