How Far Would You Go for a Charli XCX Surprise Concert?

14.10.2024 - 21:59 / cntraveler.com / Art Center

It's 12 p.m. on Thursday and I am running through the streets of Brooklyn. I have to be out of New York City and on the highway north to reach Storm King Art Center by 3 p.m., when Charli XCX will be bumping her new album at a surprise listening party. Streaming in from directions unknown, hundreds of other fans have likewise shirked their responsibilities for the day—skipping work and school, canceling plans, ditching kids with partners—and booked it to this 500-acre sculpture park in New Windsor, New York, on the vague premise of exclusively hearing Charli XCX's latest music the day before the album's release. Some have taken four-hour trains; others, carpooled with strangers; the most die-hard brats are seeing her for the fourth or fifth time, after having followed her to California, Spain, and beyond. For her part, I know Charli herself will be on a plane the minute the show ends, given she's in the middle of her North America tour.

In a matter of hours we will be in the middle of a tawny field, a crowd dressed in acidic brat green and leather throbbing to dance music while Charli XCX flips her hair on a makeshift stage, with fiery fall foliage and large-scale sculptures by Alice Aycock and Mark di Suvero towering in the periphery. The sheer brattiness it took to be here, and the sheer coolness of the scene unfolding, courses through everyone's veins.

On Thursday, October 10, Charli XCX previewed her new album at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York.

Charli XCX, muse and creator of “brat summer” and queen pop star of the moment, announced the free pop-up event just a few days ago on her Instagram with the time, place, a space to RSVP, and just a few words "RSVP doesn't guarantee entry, email will be sent to confirmed guests." No further details. Those who were granted a ticket were emailed less than 24 hours before the event, with a choice—accept the offer and figure out the rest (like, are you really traveling to a concert in rural New York at 3 p.m. the following day?), or decline so somebody else who is willing make the trek can go instead.

With a few strategic emails, I get on the list as media—but it's only once I'm leather-loafers-on-the-ground, I realize the lengths everyone else has gone to be here, at this iconic outdoor museum on a weekday. On arriving, the line for “standby” guests who do not have confirmed tickets is as long as the regular queue. Inside, where neon lime cocktails and free shirts that say “art” in the signature brat font are being handed out at tables, I overhear people admitting the excuses they pulled to get the day off work (one girl cried to her boss; I spot another brat, no joke, holding her laptop open while dancing, seemingly on the clock); others are