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Impossible to resist ... Madison Beer performing in Hamburg last week.
Impossible to resist ... Madison Beer performing in Hamburg last week. Photograph: Chris Emil Janßen/Action press/Rex/Shutterstock
Impossible to resist ... Madison Beer performing in Hamburg last week. Photograph: Chris Emil Janßen/Action press/Rex/Shutterstock

Madison Beer review – Bieber protege comes of age credibly

This article is more than 6 years old

ABC2, Glasgow
The American teenager pulls off somersaulting vocals and pin-drop performances with regal poise

In 2012, aspiring pop star Madison Beer got a vertiginous career bump from Justin Bieber after he gushingly shared a clip of her covering Etta James’s At Last with his millions of Instagram followers. In the years since, Beer has relocated from New York to LA, released the odd single and maintained an impressive social media presence. It was only in February this year – just before her 19th birthday – that she finally released her proper debut, As She Pleases, a seven-track EP of retro-futuristic R&B. If the early days of Bieber’s career were characterised by cheesy teen-pop, Beer seems determined to skip straight to the credible reinvention.

In Glasgow, her teenage fans have turned out in force, and while Beer carries herself with a regal poise, she still seems impressed that the school disco crowd already know her songs back to front. They loudly echo the doo-wop vamping of Teenager in Love, a swaying throwback to the days of the drive-in, and pre-empt the sweet chorus to Fools, a glittering, Gorillaz-style groove that foregrounds Beer’s smoky vocals.

This brief 45-minute set is boosted by some incongruous cover choices. Beer delivers a pin-drop performance of Labrinth’s piano ballad outlier Jealous and finds an unexpected Hawaiian sway within Radiohead’s Creep. These are good showcases for her somersaulting voice but her own songs are arguably more fun. On the dancehall throb of Home With You, she shoos away a sleazy suitor while on the waspish Dead – her biggest hit and a rousing encore – she forensically eviscerates a shiftless lover. In full you-go-girl flight, Beer is impossible to resist.

  • At Academy, Manchester, 24 March. Then touring the UK until 30 March.

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