As Conan Gray struts onto the Wembley Arena stage to strike a pose over thudding 80s-inspired synths, he’s greeted by the rapturous applause of 12,500 pop music fans. It’s a huge crowd for the 25-year-old, who could still be viewed as a star on the rise – but over a 90 minute live show, it’s clear the American is sitting on one of the year’s most underrated records.
Having shot to fame on social media and YouTube, some may have viewed Gray as another pop star wannabe. The artist’s early releases played into the lovesick coming-of-age tales that punctuated his online content but 2024 record Found Heaven has seen the songwriter level up.
On that album, the star dives into the 80s bag of tricks in which the likes of Dua Lipa and The Weeknd found so much joy in 2020 – but Gray found his own authenticity in a genre that is so regularly reborn today. Just as he did on the album’s sonics, the Found Heaven live tour sees the artist commit to his bit.
With his luscious black locks and red leather-clad trousers, the singer looks like a true 80s figurine as he fires the night to life with ‘Fainted Love’ and ‘Never Ending Song’. There’s a joyful simplicity to the way Gray pays homage to that era and it’s even more plain to hear on the thudding production of ‘Eye Of The Night’ moments later.
After a rip-roaring start, fans are made to wait to be led back into the Found Heaven world and it’s with a welcome smirk when Gray shifts up a gear in ‘Boys & Girls’. Elsewhere, fan-favourite ‘Bourgeoisieses’ is a flick that brilliantly flirts with the kitsch and comes alive on stage.
There’s no doubting that Found Heaven is the star’s best work to date, and a sign of a songwriter whose brilliance is only at the beginning. However, to pour scorn on the star’s earlier work would be an error.
When last headlining in London, Gray played to just over 5,000 fans at the Eventim Apollo but some tracks on that tour were already begging for the arena treatment. On Sunday night at Wembley, they get exactly that.
‘Jigsaw’ is a moody break-up banger that builds and builds while ‘Wish You Were Sober’ has a kind of teen romcom feel that’ll never grow old and the melodramatic ‘Heather’ is clearly a cult classic among his listeners with the wall of sound it’s greeted with.
There are moments during the hour and a half when Gray perhaps miscalculates the pacing of his set. Anecdotes in the mid section of the evening verge on indulgent and, while deeper cuts are lapped up by fans, they dilute the brilliance of the Found Heaven material.
Having made such a bold stride forward with this year’s record, balancing the new and the old was always going to be a challenge for the songwriter but even those brief energy dips don’t take away from what is a triumphant night.
Any doubt of that is silenced in a final flurry of action. ‘Maniac’ is pure pop gold and the night comes to an end under a disco ball on the London-inspired ‘Alley Rose’. It’s with impatience we wait to hear what Conan Gray does next.
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