Friday night The Foundry at The Fillmore was filled with a number of people who were likely getting ready to partake in the Wrestlemania festivities of the weekend, in addition to a plethora of other [mostly] girls and gays decked out in vinyl, fishnets, and harnesses, who probably weren’t going to Wrestlemania, but would have looked right at home there… The capacity crowd was gathered for alt-pop vixen Charlotte Sands, who easily could have been the star of Warped Tour or any burgeoning pop star competition show in the mid-aughts. Sands has made several stops in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection in recent years, including an appearance at Sad Summer Festival 2021 at The Mann, and opening sets for YUNGBLUD (2022 at The Fillmore), The Maine (2022 at Union Transfer), and The Band CAMINO (2023 at The Met). However, Friday night Charlotte was the star at her first-ever headlining show in the 215.
“Welcome to the can we start over? Tour. Screaming, jumping, and crying are all acceptable behaviors tonight,” a voice casually boomed over the PA system early in the 17-song, 75-minute set comprised of wall-to-wall retro pop-punk and pop rock bangers. And the star of the show, in oversized cargo jeans, paired with her famous electric-blue hair, resembled the ultimate icon of aughts teen angst, successfully inspiring those in attendance to, indeed, scream, jump, and cry throughout the course of the evening. The set included 9 of 10 tracks from the tour’s titular LP, which dropped earlier this year, in addition to a number of earlier singles, which provided a handful of the evening’s highlights, including anti-suburban youth anthem “Bad Day,” in addition to hyper-playful boy-basher “Every Guy Ever.”
However, the highlight for a couple exceptionally lucky audience members came about 2/3rds of the way into the performance, when Sands performed two tracks solo acoustic which were chosen by fans out of her “Burn Book.” This particular night featured stripped down renditions of “Tantrum” (off of 2023’s Good Now EP) and “Keep Me Up All Night” (off of 2022’s Love and Other Lies). And while the set, which featured a sampling from the young artist’s entire career, left little-to-nothing to be desired, early in the evening Sands admitted she was currently sick: “I maybe sound like shit, probably sound like shit…” (She didn’t…) And after 2022 single (and another anti-suburban anthem) “Lost,” arguably the highlight of the performance, she confessed, “I feel a lot better now that I’m with you! I honestly did not know if this was gonna fuckin’ happen.”
