![\"Wolf](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2025\/09\/Wolf-Alice-Bloom-Baby-Bloom-Music-Video-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/div>All the good tickets for both nights are sold already, so clearly, the fans were there to warrant it. In terms of whether the band themselves are up for it, we won\u2019t know until December, although the colossal sound of their new album and their recent highlights, like their Glastonbury set, seem to predict a victory. But really, is it an arena where you want to see them in full swing?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the issue: newer artists stepping up to big venues should be praised. We should celebrate that, an artist like Olivia Dean, a girl from London who has been working away at music since 2019 and who got a Mercury nomination in 2023, has finally had a major breakthrough moment with \u2018Man I Need\u2019 and her new album\u00a0The Art of Loving<\/em>,\u00a0and is levelling up. We should celebrate that there is a new class of musicians climbing the ladder when, for a while, it felt stagnant, given that festival lineups seem forever stuck in 2011.<\/p>\n Perhaps it is not a question of whether they\u2019re worthy of an arena, but rather if an arena will adequately show off their worth.<\/p>\n In videos of Gracie Abrams\u2019 run of arena shows, something always feels off; her soft voice feels lost in the vast room. These aren\u2019t songs that warrant dancing or are built for showmanship, so would a more intimate space not suit them better?<\/p>\n Or take Laufey as another example. The young star is bringing jazz to the modern age, so her songs have the theatricality, but there is something strange about seeing her work, which is so informed by\u00a0tradition and classical music,\u00a0all lit up in lights with a kind of Taylor Swift-esque stage set-up of moving platforms and dancers. Is it not just a distraction? Wouldn\u2019t a theatre have worked better, or at least some kind of bridge between her 2024 shows in mid-size venues and her 2025 arena debuts?<\/p>\n Some artists can only work in an arena because no other venue could dare to hold them. Watching Lady Gaga\u2019s\u00a0Mayhem<\/em>\u00a0Ball is a perfect example of an arena show through and through as she unleashes a troupe of dancers, countless costume changes, several different sets and a career-spanning set list of songs that suit that. There wasn\u2019t a single second where the varied annoyances of being in an arena, like the ticket price, the cost of drinks, or the annoying logistics of getting there and battling through crowds to get out, even came into play. I was so thoroughly entertained and impressed by the sounds and lights and the literal fireworks that the entire experience simply made sense. It\u2019s a spectacle, as shows in arenas feel like they should be.<\/p>\n For the new acts taking their first steps into the bigger spaces, is that what they need to be preparing? Or are we returning to an era where high capacities are simply there for anyone who can warrant the ticket sales?<\/p>\n That\u2019s something to celebrate, suggesting a return to simplicity where acts from any genre can capture an arena-scale crowd and new artists can climb and climb to the biggest venues. But the question still remains, is that really where you want to see them? The balance of intimacy and development is a tricky one, and only time will tell if these newish acts can handle the growth spurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two albums in, and Olivia Dean is due to perform at The O2. On her third album tour, Icelandic singer Laufey has decided to scale … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n