{"id":535485,"date":"2026-07-06T09:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T09:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/535485\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T09:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T09:24:10","slug":"robyn-live-in-london-a-pop-superstar-on-supreme-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/535485\/","title":{"rendered":"Robyn live in London: a pop superstar on supreme form"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the lights glow a soft orange and a piano is rolled onto the O2 stage, Robyn<\/a> opens up to the audience before her. \u201cI used to feel so embarrassed about writing these sad love songs. I\u2019m like, \u2018Grow up!\u2019\u201d she laughs. \u201cBut I feel like life is pretty embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not wrong, but tonight (July 3), the Swedish pop<\/a> superstar puts on a show that not only embraces every part of life, but is empowered by it. Whether she\u2019s portraying the kind of outsized, dramatic feelings love can elicit or the carnal desires that women are often conditioned to keep private, on stage, Robyn makes everything feel liberating.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s back in London (her \u201cfavourite city in the world\u201d) as part of her \u2018Sexistential\u2019<\/a> tour, the live accompaniment to an album that explored love and sex in characteristic Robyn form \u2013 sometimes yearning, sometimes silly, and almost always turning those feelings into grade A bangers. Early on, \u2018Talk To Me\u2019 shines a light on the sexy power of communication, while the album\u2019s title track finds Robyn stepping off stage and greeting the front rows at the barrier as they yell back lines about lusting after Adam Driver and being \u201cbossy, bad and bougie\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Robyn\"Robyn credit: Gus Stewart\/Redferns<\/p>\n

That same song finds the artist declaring her body \u201ca spaceship with my ovaries in hyperdrive\u201d, and here, she creates a setting that often has a tinge of the otherworldly. As we wait for her to arrive, droning synths reverberate around the venue as lights flicker down onto the crowd, like a spacecraft drifting through unchartered corners of the galaxy. Before a sublime \u2018Really Real\u2019, a spotlight lands on Robyn, looking like it\u2019s about to beam her up. When she kneels at the front of the stage during the climax of \u2018Dancing On My Own\u2019, glitter starts to fall from the ceiling, covering her in sparkling dust until she looks like a twinkling alien who\u2019s landed on our planet, ready to dance.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of opportunity for that, whether to the bright beats of \u2018Fembot\u2019 or the juddering energy of La Bagetelle Magique collaboration \u2018Love Is Free\u2019, which threatens to turn the venue into a sweaty club scene rather than a cavernous arena. In fact, the only time the night\u2019s pace dips is when Robyn brings out a piano and slows down \u2018Be Mine!\u2019 to ballad form \u2013 presumably, it\u2019s felt that the original version would be one banger too many for us to handle.<\/p>\n

By the time Robyn reaches the encore, The O2 is in a state of rapture. What follows is the triple threat of \u2018Missing U\u2019, \u2018Call Your Girlfriend\u2019 and one of the greatest songs of all time, \u2018Dancing On My Own\u2019. At the end of \u2018Call Your Girlfriend\u2019, she throws punches into the air, like a boxer who\u2019s just clinched a title. If writing killer pop songs was a competition, Robyn would be the undisputed heavyweight champion, and tonight she makes it clear that there are few who can touch her.<\/p>\n

Robyn played:<\/p>\n

\u2018Blow My Mind\u2019
\u2018Fembot\u2019
\u2018Talk To Me\u2019
\u2018Hang With Me\u2019
\u2018Ever Again\u2019
\u2018Dopamine\u2019
\u2018Honey\u2019
\u2018Life\u2019
\u2018Love Is Free\u2019
\u2018Sexistential\u2019
\u2018Really Real\u2019
\u2018Love Kills\u2019
\u2018Be Mine!\u2019
\u2018It Don\u2019t Mean A Thing\u2019
\u2018Sucker For Love\u2019
\u2018Light Up\u2019
\u2018With Every Heartbeat\u2019
\u2018Missing U\u2019
\u2018Call Your Girlfriend\u2019
\u2018Dancing On My Own\u2019
\u2018Show Me Love\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the lights glow a soft orange and a piano is rolled onto the O2 stage, Robyn opens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278,641],"class_list":["post-535485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-pop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}