Postponed from earlier this month owing to ailing vocal cords, Demi Lovato’s first headlining London show generates considerable anticipation. In the intervening fortnight, she’s landed her first UK No 1 with the Clean Bandit collaboration Solo, and released a surprise standalone single, Sober, which reveals a recent relapse after six years’ abstinence from alcohol. Tonight she performs it on a darkened stage, under a spotlight that picks out only Lovato and her grand piano – a fitting end to 90 minutes of candour and bloodletting, teen-pop style.
In the UK, the 25-year-old is the least well known of the former child actors who got their start on the Disney and Nickelodeon channels before maturing into pop brands. If she lacks the name recognition of Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus, she makes up for it in openness: here, Lovato appears to be vulnerable but resolute, and it would be a flinty onlooker who wasn’t at least a little swayed by her commitment to telling “my truth”.
Accordingly, there’s a video of a self-administered pep talk (“We all have a story, we all have to deal with the feeling of being alone”) and she subsequently illustrates “aloneness” when she rises through the stage floor and sings You Don’t Do It for Me Anymore under a single spotlight. It feels not showy but brave; it also presents a gratifying expressiveness to her skyscraping vocals. Lovato can belt with the best of them, and does on the stormy ballad Warrior and the giddy pop hit Cool for the Summer – the latter featuring tame erotic interplay with a female dancer to underline its bi-curious theme. Tonight, though, the soaring vocals are balanced by softness and nuance.
Levity has been built in, too. In a video, she plays both a therapist and her patient, and later a “kiss cam” roving the crowd encourages couples of all genders to canoodle. Lovato herself, dressing-gowned and perched on a double bed, notes that she’s looking for a European boyfriend. “Or girlfriend,” she quickly adds, the imperfect, likable Lovato telling her “truth” as she sees it.
