Compared with last year’s top-notch pop glut, 2025 has been a little quieter: while last year was defined by all things neon-green and Brat, we’re seemingly heading into this autumn without a singular, stand-out ‘song of the summer’. Still, Addison Rae has provided one of the lead contenders with Headphones On, a self-consciously restrained, whispery slab of low-key pop that channels mid-Nineties Madonna and Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope. Now, she’s midway through her first ever tour: and her pair of comically small shows at Brixton Academy are two of the hottest tickets of the summer.
From the moment she emerges from behind a pair of dramatically backlit iron gates, for opener Fame is a Gun, Rae doesn’t stop dancing. Singing into an Oops!... I Did It Again-coded headset mic, she throws her energy into a procession of choreo routines, switching between nods to ballet (Summer Forever) to pairing the relatively restrained High Fashion with the sort of split-popping, limb-flailing choreo chaos that feels more suited to a record like Brat.
