Shot! Zara Larsson in Portsmouth
On her first headline tour, the rising Scandipop star put on an upbeat energetic show, but never quite reached the heights
Rewind to the beginning of June; I was at Brighton City Airport for Wild Life . One of my highlights was seeing Zara Larsson. The 19-year-old Scandipop star’s effervescent performance perfectly suited the summer festival’s young audience. With its “Doing it all night, all summer” refrain, Zara’s Lush Life felt like the anthem for this year’s Wild Life.
Fast forward a few months and with her stock having risen even more, Zara was back on the south coast, this time in Portsmouth on her first UK headlining tour. It was going to be interesting comparing her brief daytime appearance in front of thousands of festival-goers with a full performance in a relatively intimate venue like the 2,500 capacity Guildhall.
But for me, any comparison doesn’t stop there. Just a few weeks earlier I’d seen Dua Lipa put on an impressive show at the slightly smaller Brighton Dome. The two each share similar stories. They’re both young, they’ve both had similar career paths and each have just released hit-packed debut albums. Both artists are also now enjoying a huge amount of success, both in terms of hit records and in their celebrity profile and both appeal to an audience primarily of teenage girls. For reference, I first saw Dua Lipa a year before playing a daytime slot on the bill of the Pride festival in Brighton.
Production wise their shows were similar too, the only major difference being Zara had two backing singers and four dancers and as a result her show was the more energetic with the dancers acting like cheerleaders: all smiley-faces and clapping above their heads, while Zara flicks her blonde hair and encourages those not already jumping to jump. And when she speaks, there’s no trace of a Swedish accent. Indeed, she sounds like she’s from California rather than Stockholm.
When she sings, her voice is all too often swamped in the mix, which much of the time was a booming thud. Despite the sonic quality, her songs — almost all of which are drawn from her So Good album — have most of her adoring audience singing along and everyone belting out the choruses.
She opened confidently with one of her biggest hits, her collab with MNEK, Never Forget You.
Other highlights from her upbeat, but all-too brief set included Don’t Let Me Be Yours, a song she penned with Ed Sheeran, that morphed into his Shape Of You and I Would Like which had everyone singing, as did another MNEK co-write, the infectious Ain’t My Fault.
Not surprisingly, Symphony the song that gave her her first UK Number One with Clean Bandit, was the one that had everyone’s camera in the air and drew the loudest applause. I also liked her ballad I Can’t Fall In Love Without You. But as it did at Wild Life, it was the summer banger Lush Life that both ended and crowned the evening.
So how did her show compare to Dua’s? Well, Zara’s was certainly the most energetic, but personally I would have forgone the dancers for a more visually interesting production. The square LED panels on poles — borrowed I’m pretty sure from Clean Bandit — didn’t come close to the impact of a full video screen backdrop and her lighting was average at best. But ultimately, what separates the two is one has the more distinctive voice, the greater potential to evolve as an artist and, as a result, the bigger future ahead of her. And, as good as Zara Larsson is, for me, Dua Lipa just has the edge.
Setlist: Never Forget You | What They Say | Sundown | Girls Like | This One’s For You | Don’t Let Me Be Yours/Shape Of You | Make That Money Girl | TG4M | I Can’t Fall In Love Without You | I Would Like | Ain’t My Fault | Only You | So Good | Symphony || Lush Life
“To me, shooting live music is all about capturing the personality of the performer and the emotion of their performance. And then creating an iconic image.”
Behind the image: All these images were shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the 75 1.8 lens and the camera’s built-in digital zoom using available light only. I was only able to shoot the first three songs from the pit. Compared to when I photographed her at Wild Life, this was much trickier to shoot, the smoke and the lighting didn’t help, neither did Zara who hardly stopped moving throughout. Despite the challenging circumstances, perhaps what pleases me most is that my images are so different from those I’ve seen taken by the numerous other photographers who also got to shoot Zara during this tour. Shot in Portsmouth on 27 October 2017.
Zara’s latest album So Good is out now
Follow Zara on Twitter at @zaralarsson
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See my review of Dua Lipa at the Brighton Dome here
