Toby Bryant
With pigtails down to her waist and her name emblazoned in bold looking over Heaven, there’s a swagger to rising Northern Irish pop star NEVE the moment she strolls on stage.
The rising star – who featured in CelebMix’s Ones to Watch for 2023 – is supporting Betty Who on her Europe and UK dates, which have climaxed at the iconic London venue on Friday evening.
For those that have come to the show for NEVE, or browsed her discography online in preparation for the night, there’s a sense this type of moment is just going to be more and more frequent. For those who haven’t heard of the star, the next half-hour is an energetic introduction to one of the industry’s most exciting prospects.
Debut single ‘guy friends’ showcases the singer’s endearing tales of heartbreak as ‘Outside Voices’ is gloriously cheeky and ‘Brutally Honest’ is the slice of pop that record labels spend months searching for.
Amongst her own material, NEVE affords time to switch up versions of tracks from pop icons. She jumps on The Weeknd’s ‘Sacrifice’ for a darker moment before moving into ‘Save Your Tears’. There’s also time for a well-chosen ‘Rain On Me’ cover – during which NEVE manages to pull off vocals with echoes of both Gaga and Grande.
‘Modern Romance’, the most impressive of her already head-turning discography, rounds off the warm-up set but the moment of the evening had already come in ‘Should’ve Been Us’.
NEVE’s latest single is a heartfelt ballad during which you see new fans making nods of approval to one another in the Heaven crowd – that’s not a surprise for those present who are amongst the thousands already streaming the track.
Give it not too long, and NEVE will have her own headliner at Heaven. There’s no doubt about it.
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