Audrey Hobert asks the question, what does it mean to be a pop artist without desirability? Her answer is to materialize wearing Groucho glasses, seven feet tall in an elongated trench coat. One expects a child’s face to peek out from between the buttons, sneaking into a movie theatre.
The glasses are flung away through the opening lines of “I Like To Touch People” – surprise, it’s Audrey! – and the imaginary child she is standing on top of is revealed to be a chair. Then she cycles into an immaculately tight set, interspersed with sound clips of Drake’s “One Dance” and that dread-inducing THX deep note – you know, the deafening sound that plays before an epic Pixar movie.
The Staircase to Stardom tour takes the former tv-writer to Montreal’s MTelus, leapfrogging over the usual first-time touring venues. She shot to popularity following the release of her debut album Who’s the Clown last year, with singles “Sue Me,” “Bowling Alley,” “Wet Hair,” and “Thirst Trap” and accompanying wacky, unserious music videos. “Wet Hair” is filmed at home, shaky and skewed, while she vacuums and sings in the shower.
Much like the themes she explores on Who’s the Clown?, onstage Hobert plays within and outside the paradigm of desirability. It’s not deliberately offputting, the neon Grinch-green dress, the magnetic way she moves, a hybrid of chicken and giraffe. Rather, she is in on the joke.
“I think it’s a big burden to not like the way I look,” she confesses, before later bringing a mini trampoline onstage during the intro to “Sue Me,” rattling the handle with both hands, and splaying her legs in the air as she really goes for it on that little springboard.
At the same time, Hobert shatters the unspoken code of nonchalance – the second rule of trying is, you do not talk about trying! – by singing almost exclusively about her preoccupation with self-consciousness. “I don’t know if it’s a secret, but I think a lot about how I’m being perceived but I also don’t,” she confesses between songs.
It’s a refreshing take when the veneer of stardom and desirability – surgical precision, calculated PR moments, belonging to the “in” crowd – depends on maintaining the illusion that none of it was deliberate. It’s an even greater relief to see someone else lean into the moral ambiguity of obsessing over themselves. Fans seem to agree as they scream back every line of the set:
“I’m takin’ thirst traps in the bathroom mirror, I think I look bad so I take a hundred!” during “Thirst Trap.”
In “Bowling Alley,” an ode to social anxiety, “Sad old me showed up with wet hair / Like it didn’t matter and I didn’t care.”
“Why else would you want me? I think I’ve got a fucked up face,” from Friends-inspired track “Phoebe.”
Although it is hard to pick a climax in this set, “Chateau” was an awesome surprise. Its lyrically packed autofiction about an awful night at an A-list party comes to life onstage, transformed into danceable rock-out driven by a relentless pulse.
What’s most powerful about this set is it’s real fun, aspirational pop, but you won’t come away from it feeling ugly and poor. At the same time, it’s not radical enough to be reassuring. Hobert is blonde and built like a supermodel. She has an established career in the arts and is a best friend and collaborator of It girl Gracie Abrams. The crowd can’t seem to put their phones away, so much so that she plays “Sue Me” twice at the end of the set, the second time telling the crowd this one’s to “put your phones down.”
There is a moment when she addresses the room, guitar still hanging from her neck, and meditates on her complicated relationship with not liking the way she looks. A fan screams back, “You’re so hot!”
She shrugs under the weight of that guitar and replies, “Thanks a lot. I’m just up here.”
Nonetheless, Hobert is a good omen. Girls leaving the venue are sweaty and joyful, someone at the bus stop laments that people need to wear more deodorant. On the sidewalk I spot the couple I stood behind at Maisie Peters two months ago – one of them vogued through the entire set, and I’m sure he did the same tonight – and I feel good.
Review – Irene Wang
Photos – Sienna David
