Twenty-four hours before the Brit Awards, a crowd of screaming teenagers witnessed a rising star who operates outside the traditional music industry.
At 19, Alex O’Connor — who performs as Rex Orange County — has self-released two albums and several singles, which earned him the chance to work with Tyler, the Creator, Frank Ocean and Skepta.
The former Brit School pupil from Haslemere, Surrey, is a scattershot songwriter for the Spotify generation. Starting the show at his keyboard by channelling Seventies Stevie Wonder on the sumptuous Apricot Princess, he switched to the singing-rapping thing on Uno and grabbed a guitar to veer towards wayward pop with a brass section.
Youthful audacity risked slipping into self-indulgence when his girlfriend, Thea Morgan-Murrell, was invited to sing her own song. At least there was the curiosity factor of seeing the subject of O’Connor’s recent soul-baring lyrics.
10 must-hear albums arriving in 2018
Even with such distractions, it was impossible to be bored by a fast-paced performance clocking in under an hour that concluded with balloons, confetti and a keyboard crescendo on huge ballad Happiness.
You suspect a major record label will ultimately sign O’Connor and try to smooth away the rough edges — there’s already talk of Mark Ronson producing his next album. But there was something special about this no-frills gig that suggests he should keep doing his own thing.
