“Brighton, put your fucking middle fingers up!” are Charli XCX’s first words as she launches her first UK tour as headliner. Brighton needs no encouragement: fingers stay raised throughout the stomping opening song, Sucker – essentially a gabble of shouted verses climaxing in the chorus “Fuck you, sucker!” Backed by a female band called Charli’s Angels – they’re wearing wings to prove it – she’s a juddering energy field, whipping the audience up until the final crescendoing “suckerrrr!”
Much of the crowd is young enough to find the F-word a parent-baiting thrill – Charli’s mother, who must be used to it, is here tonight – but the 22-year-old singer born Charlotte Aitchison deploys it with a spikiness that feels deep-rooted. It has taken years to reach the point of selling out small venues like this; despite several successes, including co-author credits on Icona Pop’s hit I Love It and her own Boom Clap, she is still more a cult favourite than household name. Her most recent album, Sucker, played almost in its entirety here, sold less than expected, and when she sets about her work tonight, there’s a touch of grim determination in the badass-cheerleader persona.
Happily, the cheerleader is also a righteous whirlwind. “Hold on to your knickers,” she advises, before deconstructing an obscure Swedish punk hit, Allergic to Love. Her version of punk crosses Babes in Toyland with Leather Tuscadero, but she utterly owns the song, as she does the girl-group swooniness of Need Ur Luv. The raft of genres invites you to play influence bingo: it’s Transvision Vamp on the brash banger Doing It, then new-wave princelings the Knack on a sneering takedown of rock stars, Gold Coins, which she sings clasping a giant inflatable guitar. Sparkling and immediate, the closing Boom Clap exemplifies the Instagram culture Charli inhabits. There’s no such thing as deferred gratification here; she is all about the now, and that’s just fine.
• At Shepherd’s Bush Empire (0844 477 2000) on 25 March. At Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow (0141-339 9784), on 27 March. Then touring.
