Space Concert: “MØ” live at Heaven
Welcome to our first Space Concert review,
We indeed went to another planet during last night’s concert at “Heaven” in London, where Multi-Platinum record seller MØ played a very incredible show, part of her tour around Europe to promote her last album Motordrome.
The Heaven Club is famous worldwide, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, and its incredible design, resembling an underground hideout, makes just being there a unique experience. MØ is not new to Heaven Club, she already played here in 2014, which she also mentioned during the concert, always conveying her love for London and her fans. We love you as well, just so you know <3.
MØ played indeed a lot of times in London, even in huge venues like the SSE Wembley Arena, before Years Years, and also at the O2 Arena, supporting Panic! At The Disco. This was her last concert in London, which happened back in 2019.
That year we were enough lucky to see her live at the tiny music venue Hangar, where she played a very intimate show. This was way before covid happened and she was raging with the crowd a dancing amongst all of us, having a complete blast. Her punk roots and attitude are very evident in her live performance where she transforms into a mythological creature that makes the crowd dance at her will.
Intro – “Youth Is Lost”
Anyway, this was 3 years ago, lots have changed, but not her incredible and infectious energy. Her third album “Motordrome” was just recently released at the beginning of the year and the songs out of this album sound amazing live. MØ starts indeed with a song off Motordrome which is called Youth Is Lost. The bass hits hard when the song starts and while she just entering the stage we could feel her primal energy. Just from the first song we were all immediately immersed in this incredible atmosphere that perfectly resembles the new album.
“Motordrome” is way darker and self-reflective than her previous album “Forever, Neverland”, and we definitely enjoyed that. The live approach as a whole sounds more rock, even industrial at times, with the keyboardist playing the bass or the guitar during some songs and even the longtime live session drummer picking up the guitar during one of the songs in the setlist.
“Cool To Cry”
She immediately continues her performance with another song off the last album called “Cool To Cry”, which sounds rockier than ever live compared to the original. The live renditions of “Motordrome” are so good that after attending the show the original songs will sound different, and that’s because you cannot encapsulate and capture the raw energy of a live performance.
As MØ also stated during the show, playing live is the most important thing in music, and we absolutely second this.
“Pilgrim”
That’s great to see that MØ is still playing her second ever single “Pilgrim” out of her first album “No Mythologies To Follow”. This album is 8 years old, but it aged pretty well. She just played this song off her first album, giving more space to “Motordrome”. Of course, I mean… it’s her last album and we were craving for a new LP for almost 4 years so we’re definitely not complaining.
We are definitely not like those guys that always want the artist to play the same songs, screw that. Anyway, Pilgrim was the first single that created some buzz around MØ as an indie music project, and it’s indeed an important song that we are happy she included into her new and smooth setlist.
“True Romance”
At a certain point of the gig, suddenly MØ said that she was gonna play a song that she have never released, called “True Romance”.
OKAY!! We were kinda caught off guard, and we were definitely hyped. We never heard this song before, but she has been playing it live for a while now and she announced that she was going to release it really soon. WE REALLY CAN’T WAIT TO LISTEN TO IT. Anyway, the live version was AMAZING, out of this world.
“Lean On”
C’MON!! You all know this song. “Lean On” was the most famous song on Spotify for a while back in 2016/2017 and is the song that made MØ a global sensation. Look at the security people! They also cannot stop moving to the rhythm of the song, that’s impossible.
Even though “Lean On” is a hit parade tune and her most famous single so far, MØ proved multiple times that she’s not a one-hit-wonder. At all!! She always proved to be a great singer-songwriter and performer, even before “Lean On” came out. The fact that she plays it in the middle of the setlist shows her confidence, she’s just warming up for what is coming next. Talking about warming up, I definitely jumped too much during the gig. At the end I was exhausted. I wonder how she can handle this every night… I think I should work out more… probably with “Motordrome” as a soundtrack, to be sure I have the right mood and energy.
The “Motordrome” Experience
The show overall was a deep dive into “Motordrome”. Indeed MØ played seven songs out of her last album including “Live To Survive”, “New Moon”, “Punches” and “Kindness”. This new release is pretty special, with MØ writing about her issues and anxiety in a direct and honest way, taking a totally different direction from her past releases, which was definitely a bold decision. Don’t get us wrong though, “Motordrome” is also a very uplifting album, while it might be scary to find yourself in a downward spiral of bad thoughts, taking a ride and being in a Motordrome takes courage and the adrenaline rush is inevitable. The same that we felt during the show. MØ has never been so fierce and punk during a live performance, stage diving on the crowd like a true punk rocker does. “Motordrome” is an album made to sound outstanding on a live show, and the other songs in MØ’s setlist are handpicked perfectly, favoring an immersive experience rather than a show full of hit singles.
The motorbike installation was pretty impressive, we saw this for the first time during the show at the “Den Gran Hal” at Christiania. That’s an abstract version of a motorbike that went through God knows what, and can have different interpretations depending on who’s watching it. We hope to see this at a museum. This would definitely look great on the Tate Modern.
Alright!! This was our first Space Concert Review, and MØ was definitely the best artist to start with this new format. We hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as we enjoyed attending the show, and we really loved it so we have pretty high expectations.
We will see you soon at a new show OUT OF THIS WORLD!!
