The Sweat Tour
Picture this: You're wearing a neon green top, a black leather mini skirt and mesh tights, skinny sunglasses perched on top of your head. Troye Sivan just finished his first set of solo songs that already made you lose a little bit of your voice and suddenly there is a neon green curtain surrounding the stage spelling out 'brat' in huge letters. You look over to your friend and you feel insanely giddy about the night you're about to have. Depending on where you live, this might actually be your recently past or soon-to-come reality, or just a fantasy scenario that gives you an insane amount of FOMO.
Troye Sivan and Charli XCX for i-D Magazine
In the middle of September, just shortly after Charli XCX herself announced the official end of Brat Summer, she embarked on a collaboration tour with friend and colleague Troye Sivan titled ‘Sweat Tour’. After the immense popularity of Troye’s most recent album Something To Give Each Other and the complete pop culture reset that was brat by Charli XCX, this tour promised to merge the best of both worlds. Painting the arenas all over North America black and brat green, the ‘Sweat’ crowds resemble a queue in front of a rave club more than an actual concert.
As hard as it might be to believe, this collaboration tour was announced a whole two months before brat even came out, so Troye and Charli had absolutely no clue how big of a deal it was going to become. The idea of the tour started as a giant party of unabashed queerness and club culture, and just a fun way to bring together the fans of both artists and tour their new albums together. Troye and Charli have been both personal and industry friends for a while now, previously collaborating on songs 1999 and 2099, and most recently on a remix for one of the brat remix tracks, Talk Talk featuring Troye Sivan. Both artists create queer music and music inspired by queer culture, and aim to create a community with their releases. However, the ‘Sweat Tour’ might be the absolute peak of their community building. Since both artists blew up in the music and pop culture world this year, merging their fan bases has been just as explosive as expected.
The tour is uniquely structured to have short alternating sets of a few songs by each artist at a time, keeping both fan groups, as well as people who love both artists, on their feet the entire show. And with British music artist Shygirl being the opener, the audience is immediately transported into the world of club music and electronic pop and ready for what’s to come. Despite the show already being a party spectacle, Troye and Charli even brought two surprise guests to the show at Madison Square Garden in New York City - Lorde and Addison Rae, who both sang with the artists. Ultimately, the ‘Sweat Tour’ is meant to be a giant rave and a queer party where everyone is supposed to let loose and have fun.
This year has felt like a pop music revolution in more ways than one. It seems that distinct identities of the artists matter more than ever when it comes to gaining popularity, and having a strong personal brand is absolutely crucial. Charli XCX even said it herself for i-D Magazine: “That to me feels like the overarching style in pop right now. If you don’t have this distinct point of view, I don’t know if that’s working right now.” And Charli has managed to prove her point masterfully with the brat album concept. The marketing campaign of brat was so genius it should be studied in marketing classes, and it all started from a simple monochromatic concept and the most basic font imaginable. It was a full cultural reset, not only because it managed to market a really niche color into the most popular shade of the summer, but also because it didn’t just sell music - it sold a persona. Brat Summer represented messiness and freedom of expression and sexuality, and it fully embraced the 365 party girl aesthetic. On the other hand, Troye’s album Something To Give Each Other brought a more sensual side to the current queer pop landscape, although his single ‘Rush’ stood out and perfectly fit into the brat aesthetic.
After Charli announced the end of Brat Summer on social media, everyone wondered what would happen now and if bratwill truly fizzle out from our lives, but the Sweat Tour ensured this definitely wouldn’t happen. The tour not only gave the fans a space to put on an outrageous outfit and rave to the songs they love, but also created a huge safe space for the queer community that allows everyone to be unapologetically themselves and let out their brat side without worry of any judgment. This tour became so big that its theme and soundtrack have even been present at clubs and workout classes all over the world. Fans have been relentlessly demanding more international legs of the tour, and, with the way its popularity has skyrocketed, there might even be hope for new dates in the future (one can only dream). Until then, look up your local queer clubs and one of them just might have the ‘Sweat’ theme party to transport you into the fantasy.
