Oh, Lily Allen. Pop that cute-as-fuck little creature in a sparkly mini-dress and sneakers and watch the crowd
swoon. The rascally Brit took to the stage at Festival Hall and performed a set that was super similar to her performance last year at The Forum. Opening with 'Everyone's At It' and 'LDN' she paced the stage and kicked up her heels.
There's no denying the former MySpace princess's appeal; her audience was full of tweens, teens, 20-somethings, middle-aged mamas, suits, heteros, homos, whoever – all of them taking crap photos on their cameras/phones throughout her performance. Ladies sang along with '22' and Lily exlpained the contrast between her syrupy sweet 'Who'd Have Known' and 'I Could Say'. Her version of 'Naive' was unappreciated, but fabulous. 'Littlest Things' and 'Chinese' are still two of her simplest but loveliest songs, but the fairy bad sound at Festival Hall, the usually soft and sweet tunes sounded pretty rough.
Despite her best efforts to hide it, it was evident that Lily wasn't at her best – whether it was exhaustion or a Big Day Out hangover – she was far less talkative, cheeky and funny than she has been in the past. Along with her knack for putting into song our generation's affairs with romance, religion, drugs and family, it's Allen's on-stage personality that is her gift. At Festival Hall, that was lacking. That said, Allen has always been pretty honest/real with her fans and the press, so the fact that she was tired, or hungover, or bored, or just a little bit human didn't seem to worry her audience.
Donning a leopard-print dress, Our Lily finished the show with Britney's 'Womanizer' and 'Not Fair' (complete with line-dancing stamps).
BEST: Our girl returning to her frock-and-sneakers combination a la St Jerome's 2006.
WORST: Lily no talky much.
ADORABLE: Lily loves throwing down some dubstep and breakbeat.
POSSIBLY IRRELEVANT: There was one gentleman security guard who just about saved our evening. Big ups to you, kind sir.
PERPLEXING: Did anybody figure out who that guest MC was? Is Lily starting her own label? Is he the first to be signed? Was it Alfie?
Photos by arielamazing.