Down in the capital, Taylor Swift is slaying Wembley with songs about insecurity, coming-of-age and the emotional turmoil of dating men. But up in Manchester, another artist with the very same initials is moved to do the same. With 2023 album Something to Give Each Other, Troye Sivan’s output has veered much more risque than Swift’s. But what the Aussie singer-songwriter lacks in chart ubiquity, he more than makes up for in self-realisation, offering up a queer-centric performance that is every bit as heartwarming as it is hot.
With opener Get Me Started, a high choreographical bar is set. Sensual and athletic, his six-piece troupe of dancers are almost K-pop-worthy in their precision, creating moments of tenderness amid all the raunch. Many fans will have already seen footage of the moment in which Sivan sings into a microphone hung phallically between one dancer’s legs, but they might have missed the deep, trusting eye-contact that lingers between the pair.
As Sivan later explains, Something to Give Each Other was written with the live experience in mind, wanting to capture communal feelings of sweat and bodies and release. The space he gives in the setlist to his collaborations with Ariana Grande feels especially poignant in Manchester, while Still Got It, a downhearted slow jam about struggling to get over someone, sees many snogging couples in the audience reclaiming it as their personal hymn.
But where there’s schmaltz, Sivan seems to prefer sauce. “Our bus call tonight is pretty late; where shall we all go out?” he teases, introducing a rainbow-lit run of 1999, Honey and Rush. “Shall we do a meet-up on Canal Street? I love it there – I feel like we’d get arrested for inciting a gay riot, but that would be kind of chic, no?”
When the house lights come up, it’s a deeply unchic 9.48pm, but the early finish does leave ample time to descend on Manchester’s iconic gay village, maybe even delivering on Sivan’s suggestion that we all “find someone to take home tonight”. Even if he doesn’t do an afterparty, Sivan can sleep soundly in the knowledge that he has what it takes to set pulses thumping.
