Arlo Parks - Live Review

This was my first time seeing Arlo Parks, and the setting suited that sense of coming to it fresh. These intimate record store dates are tied to the release of Ambiguous Desire, with Truck Store Oxford behind the Oxford show, hosted by the O2 Academy Oxford, and there was something nicely direct about it all. No long build-up, no big production, just Arlo walking out in a Radiohead T-shirt, which got an easy reaction in Oxford for obvious reasons, and saying she had not been here for a long time.

She also made it clear early on that we were getting the new album front to back. That gave the night a different feel from a standard tour set. It was less about waiting for familiar peaks and more about sitting with the shape of the record as it unfolded. The room helped with that. It stayed very dark for most of the hour, with moody lighting that kept everything pulled inward, and with only a guitarist alongside her there was loads of space in the arrangements.

What held it together was her voice. It is one of those voices you recognise straight away, and live it had the same steadiness and closeness that comes across on record. A lot of songs began with her at the keyboards, which added to the soft start-stop flow of the set before the sampled parts and more upbeat rhythms gradually took hold. Heaven opened things in a way that felt measured rather than dramatic, and from there songs like Jetta and Blue Disco gave a better sense of how this material works in a room. The newer sound has movement in it, but it is not trying to force a reaction. It just gets under your skin slowly.

That was probably what stayed with me most. The set was not huge or showy, but it had a good mix of feelings running through it. Some moments felt warm and light on their feet, others more distant and reflective, and the shifts between the two were handled without much fuss. Even when the pace picked up a bit later on, with 2SIDED and New Desire helping the set move along, the mood stayed controlled. Nightswimming and Floette closed it out in a way that felt true to the rest of the evening, calm but not flat.

It was all over in about an hour, quick enough that it almost felt like she had just arrived and then gone again, but long enough to get a proper feel for where this new album sits live. Right near the end she thanked the crowd for their energy, and I left feeling oddly lifted by it. That does not always happen. This one did.