Lauren Mayberry’s Vicious Creature Tour is highly competitive. It’s currently in competition for Most Wall-to-Wall Bangers in a Headlining Set, Most Tear-Inducing Cover (a timely take on The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony”), and Most Impressive Solo Performance From Someone in a Huge Band of 2025. Although the CHVRCHES frontwoman has played a plethora of shows in New York and DC over the course of the past year and a half, this past Monday, February 17th, on an exceptionally chilly (and sartorially limiting) night, Mayberry played her first show in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection since the start of her solo venture, and I’m very much hoping it won’t be her last.
“I’m wearing the warmest clothing that I have in my performance wardrobe case,” the 21st Century style icon and synth-pop sensation — donning an iconically rock n’ roll faux fur coat over a glittered top and full-length sequined mesh skirt – clarifies after opening the show with “Crocodile Tears,” the fifth and latest single off of her solo debut, Vicious Creature, which dropped last December. Although Mayberry has cited Broadway vixens Velma Kelly of Chicago and Sally Bowles of Cabaret as much of the song’s inspiration, sonically (like most of Vicious Creature) it’s more in the realm of the ‘90s alt-pop heroines who were enchanting us perhaps before the term “alt-pop” existed.
The performance had the Scottish chanteuse serenading the most intimate room to host her in the 215 in well over a decade. (CHVRCHES last played the Eraserhood venue in 2013, with their last several headlining shows taking place down the street at the more-than-double-capacity Franklin Music Hall/Electric Factory… the first of which taking place back when it was actually still called The Electric Factory.) And while the weather seemed to provide an obstacle for many would-be attendees, the “relaxed capacity” room was treated to a perfectly tight hour-long set comprised of each of the 12 songs of Vicious Creature, in addition to the aforementioned cover of “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” which I think each and every one of us needed more than we realized.
Despite joking about the limitations of her small legs early in the set, Lauren Mayberry navigated the stage of Union Transfer with more prowess and charisma than any other frontperson to take to the space in recent years with the possible exception of Kathleen Hanna on opening night of Le Tigre’s reunion tour in 2023. She also knew how to play to the crowd. “This next song has a prop, guys… If you saw the last CHVRCHES album tour, you will know that I got into the idea of prop work … This one requires a lot less washing of myself after the show,” she laughs along with CHVRCHES fans, referencing being doused in blood for the encore of the Screen Violence tour. This time, however, the prop was a simple megaphone to accompany single and album opener “Something in the Air,” a commentary on our present wave of conspiracy theories.
Prior to the final song of the main set, “Sorry, Etc” (“a screamy, shouty, angry one,” as Lauren so eloquently puts it), the singer acknowledges the elephant in the room: “Although I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, I hear congratulations are in order… I don’t understand anything to do with the game, but Jason Kelce seems nice… See, look, I talked about sports, I did a sport, I did that for you, the people of Philadelphia!” However, despite her lack of familiarity with American football, prior to “Sunday Best,” the second song of the encore and actual final number of the evening, Mayberry admits that she and her CHVRCHES bandmates have always had a fondness for the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, and that we can certainly expect them back: “CHVRCHES always have such a great time when we play in Philly, so I have to tell the guys. I’ll go back and be like, ‘Philly is still good, the people are still kind, the weather is too cold, but the gigs are still good!’”
