FKA Twigs, Brixton Academy

Annoyance first – FKA Twigs was very late for her show at Brixton Academy. Like, an hour. It was a good thing the crowd was feeling very on her side, and she delivered.

She rocked Jools Holland’s iconic BBC show last week and is getting the critical love off of her staggering second album Magdalene. Tahliah Barnett aka FKA Twigs has figured out a way to make her experimentally expressive performance into an amazing live show.

Twigs put on a 90-minute set full of emotion, costumes that went beyond stagewear, tight vocals and she dances, too – tapdancing, wushu, which is a sort of Asian swordplay, and pole-dancing.

She really connected with the packed Brixton Academy crowd, confessing the meaning behind “Mirrored Heart” and almost losing her beautiful voice during, same with “Mary Magdalene”. “Cellophane” stole the show in closing. Backed by a gorgeous cello and piano, she gave her everything and then, like a vision, just left her devoted crowd.

Amazing stuff.