Femme - Birthdays, London 24/09/14
Tonight saw London singer, songwriter and star-in-waiting Laura Bettinson - aka Femme - launch her new single “High” in front of a sold-out crowd at Dalston's Birthdays.
Having released a spate of ghetto fabulous, bubble gum singles over the last few years, this is a full-blooded display of swag and sass, undeniable choruses and throbbing bass-pop.
Flanked by her dancers The Bullet Girls, with her cropped blonde hair and dressed in pink fur, PVC shorts and dripping in chunky gold, Femme's image is very much early Eeighties Madonna - certainly the candy-cane chants of “Heartbeat” fizz with that same sharp potency that made “Borderline” and “Lucky Star” such excellent pop songs. But there's a streetwise edge that lurks behind these summer jams especially in the 90s hip hop- infused “Double Trouble”, with beats provided by DJ The Last Skeptik, or the skittering Caribbean bounce of “Educated”.
Quirky single “High”, the reason we're all here tonight, is delivered with strangely little fanfare but there's no doubt its performance is a triumph. They day after, Femme boards a plane to support Charli XCX on her US tour - when she returns, expect her to be an even bigger star.
Setlist:
Romeo
Respect
Double Touble
Educated (+ Last Skeptik Educated Remix)
High
Shimmy Bango
Heartbeat
SOS
Fever Boy
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Locoluvva
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