Charli xcx Revives ‘Boom Clap’ in L.A., With Chappell Roan on Hand

By Daniel Okafor

Charli xcx performed her 2014 breakthrough “Boom Clap” on Saturday night at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles — for the first time since 2023, according to setlist.fm. The catalyst was Chappell Roan, who joined her onstage to sing it.

Charli doesn’t do nostalgia. Anyone who’s caught her live knows she stays locked on current material and rarely looks back for more than a couple of songs. Saturday was the exception, and it took a guest with leverage to make it happen.

“Every night on tour, I play an old song. I asked a friend of mine if she would come and sing an old song of mine with me, and they said, ‘The only way I’m doing it is if it’s this song,’ so you have her to thank,” Charli told the crowd before Roan appeared.

So the audience has Roan to thank, and presumably Roan has her own taste to blame. Either way, a seven-year-old radio staple got its arena moment.

Who else showed up?

Roan wasn’t the only guest. Later in the set, PinkPantheress came out to perform her own track, “Stateside.” Then the Dare arrived for an extended version of “Guess,” complete with a cannon firing pairs of underwear into the audience. That last detail needs no gloss. It was exactly what it sounds like.

The evening doubles as a warm-up of sorts for Roan. She headlines her own two-day Los Angeles festival, the “Super Graphic Spectacular,” next weekend.

What is the tour actually supporting?

The show belongs to a comparatively compact 12-date North American arena tour behind Charli’s latest album, “Music Fashion Film.” It launched in Philadelphia on Sept. 11 and has included two nights at both Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and the Kia Forum.

The second Forum night is tonight, Sunday. From there: Glendale, Calif., then a wrap in Las Vegas. Twelve dates is lean by arena-tour standards — a sprint, not a lap, for an artist who spent last summer dominating the conversation with “Brat.”

“Music Fashion Film” dropped on July 24 and carries the singles “Rock Music” and “SS26.” The record marks a pivot: Charli has traded the electro-dance production of “Brat” for a more guitar-based sound — roughly the distance between a club soundsystem and a rehearsal-room amp.

Does the setlist signal anything?

One revived single doesn’t make a nostalgia act, and Charli’s own framing keeps it in perspective: an old song played every night, this one chosen by a friend. The interesting pressure point is the new guitar direction. If audiences at Glendale and Las Vegas keep showing up for “Boom Clap” more than “SS26,” the pivot’s durability gets its real test on the road through Vegas.