At Charli xcx’s electric spectacle in Toronto, a Canadian filmmaking legend had a lasting presence

REVIEW At Charli xcx’s electric spectacle in Toronto, a Canadian filmmaking legend had a lasting presence BRAD WHEELER PUBLISHED 57 MINUTES AGO Open this photo in gallery: Charli xcx performs at Scotiabank Arena, part of her tour in support of her seventh studio album, Music, Fashion, Film on Sept. 21. HENRY REDCLIFFE/SUPPLIED COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. At the end of her 90-minute spectacle of pulsing hyper-pop and industrialized, rave-ready rock experimentations at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Monday, the British superstar Charli xcx spoke to the audience before the final song, No One Lasts Forever. She began with a shout-out to a Canadian octogenarian filmmaker, “Mr. David Cronenberg,” whose voiceover is featured prominently on the track that also closes her new album, Music, Fashion, Film. In 2025, she travelled to Toronto to record a conversation with the shock auteur. “It’s the last thing I did for this album, it kind of completed the whole thing,” she explained, describing No One Lasts Forever as the most important song on the album and a “mission statement of how I feel.” The song and the album are the 34-year-old’s reaction to the zeitgeist level of fame caused by the success of her 2024 LP Brat. Transcending the music world, brat was a flash cultural movement officially deemed by Collins English Dictionary as 2024’s word of the year, redefined as someone with an independent and hedonistic attitude. “I don’t wanna go home, now I’m more confident than ever,” she sang on the synth-popped No One Lasts Forever in front of the electrified crowd. “Since everyone knows my name, all the parties got better.” Charli xcx’s choreographer Eric Christison on leaving pointe shoes for fashion and music Parties and fame end. Even concerts have curfews. The Scotiabank show closed with the recorded words of Cronenberg on legacies repeated like a mantra: “They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever.” Charli and her troupe of female dancers posed as a bunch, frozen in place as Cronenberg’s phrase “Oblivion is freedom” was shown on the large video screens flanking the stage. The idea is that there is liberation in the acceptance that we’ll all be unremembered eventually. Which doesn’t mean this concert will be forgotten anytime soon. Banger after banger, relentless visually and sonically, in front a largely female audience, dressed like…