I recently documented 20 of the hardest-to-believe-they-ever-happened Philadelphia shows of the past 20 years, which included Caroline Polachek fronting Chairlift for a crowd of about 30 at KFN in 2009, Charli XCX playing to under 20 at North Star Bar in 2012, and Billie Eilish’s first-ever Philthy appearance, which took place at the 220-capacity World Café Live Upstairs in 2017… And it seems that next Friday’s (3/15) performance from London-based multidisciplinary artist Hannah Diamond – who features on 2016 track “Paradise” by Charli XCX herself, and who Diamond, additionally a professional photographer, has also shot for major commercial campaigns – at Johnny Brenda’s might just find its way into that category.
“Pink and Blue,” Hannah Diamond’s first single, dropped in 2013 and quickly became an internet sensation, something she not only happily embodied, but sought to explore in a theoretical manner (Her sound is, likewise, often an amalgam of bubblegum pop and experimental electronic music that seems to examine the very nature of popular art.) “I’m really interested in the intersection between a person and their image – how we build these self portraits of ourselves in online spaces,” she has said of the contemporary phenomenon. However, in 2019 she evolved from 21st Century bedroom pop icon to full-on pop-star-in-the-making with her debut LP, Reflections, which dropped courtesy of A. G. Cook’s PC Music, of which Diamond is a founding member.
Last October Hannah Diamond released sophomore LP Perfect Picture (shortly before the closing of PC Music), a collaboration with co-writer and executive producer David Gamson, formerly of Scritti Politti, who has also made a plethora of notable records with artists like Chaka Khan, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Kesha. The album is arguably the best exercise in hyperpop the music world has seen yet and was almost universally praised by critics, with The Line of Best Fit giving it a 9/10 and proclaiming, “Crisp and crystalline, the cohesiveness alone make Diamond’s latest re-imagining of pop pretty much perfect, but it’s her attention to detail that elevates it even higher.”
Hannah Diamond kicks off her first-ever full-scale US tour (Well, 11 dates…) next Thursday in DC, the night before she graces the stage of Fishtown’s “mini rock n’ roll ballroom,” but I can’t imagine her next area appearance will be in a space any smaller than the 1,000-capacity Theatre of Living Arts (and the 3,500-capacity Met doesn’t seem completely out of the realm of possibility…) The March 15th date at Johnny Brenda’s recently sold out, but I would highly recommend continuing to check the site for last-minute, newly-available tickets (Click the link below as frequently as possible, if you’re interested.), as it’s already hard to believe that this bourgeoning pop icon is actually playing the 250-capacity barroom, and it’s exponentially harder to imagine she’ll ever play a local room of that intimacy again. In the meantime, check out the official music video for the title track of Perfect Picture.
*Keep checking for tickets here.
