Review: Janelle Monae delivers 'performance for our time' in Manchester

It's rather apt that Janelle Monae arrives on stage here in Manchester dressed like a very large bouquet of flowers. For the American artist, storyteller, actor and activist is very clearly in full bloom.

Fresh from a stellar performance at Glastonbury, the ten-time Grammy nominee is now here in Manchester for a three night residency at the Hall inside Avivia Studios, in a show that cements her status as one of the most exciting performers of our times.

"We’re going to make everyone who did not show up… regret it," she purrs. And my word does she do exactly that.

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I mean, I hate to rub it in but I think the term "FOMO" was invented for nights like this, and for every single person in Manchester who did not got a ticket for this week's run of gigs.

Her performance levels have to be seen to be believed - from the opening notes of Float right through to a finale of Come Alive - it's never less than 100 per cent perfection. She sings, she raps, she dances with such an effortless joie de vivre.

And she does it all while making everyone in her thrall feel better about themselves, with her relentless messages of body positivity, joy and empowerment, making us all sing back that we're Phenomenal too.

I mean, clearly we're not exactly in the same phenomenal league as Ms Monae, but we can all have a hoot trying. Never more so than when she gets her dancers to pick out a load of fans from the crowd to join the fun on stage for a massive dancealong to Paid in Pleasure.

After chatting to all the devotees slightly nervously dancing alongside her, she halts the show with another message of barnstorming brilliance. "This is your moment, not mine," she says. "So I know out there in the real world, outside of here you may shrink in front of other people, you may not always want to show your light, but here, we are going to support your shine.

"You deserve to be here tonight, when you leave this experience I want you to go out and feel even more empowered to walk in your greatness, to walk in your uniqueness, no matter what you may look like, you are one of one and you need to always remember that OK?" Her wonderful words makes you almost want to shed a tear.

She hails all her band as “her heroes”, and they are the brilliant foil to everything Monae puts into this show - her incredible dancers either side, the brass duo, the drums, the bass and guitar, all are as one with the vibes of this feast of a performance.

The show is sectioned into chapters, the likes of "A thousand versions of oneself", "Now or never", "Paradise found" and, my personal favourite, "(T)high vibrations".

Each chapter allows a costume change, and what utterly brilliant costumes they are - a large black and white puffer jacket and red beret to blast out Haute; her now-famous vulva pants (oh, and a labia fascinator for good measure) for the delicious rasp of Pynk; 80s gym lycra for Yoga.

She is someone so at one with her own physicality, happily twerking, twisting, even laying down all over the stage steps, all exuding that body positivity that she encourages us all to embrace too. "This is my body, my choice," she says amid a flash of her breast.

To quote her own song, she is so impressive, she is so phenomenal. Quite frankly she is.... everything. She can even outgurn Les Dawson, I mean what a human, what a Q.U.E.E.N.

"This is my first time back across the pond since 2019," Monae says - back then she performed at the start of the 2019 Manchester International Festival in a memorable Castlefield Bowl gig.

She added there has been "a lot of evolution, a lot of life lessons learned and I want to thank you all for staying with me. It’s such a privilege and honour to be a storyteller and an artist."

Kudos too, to Manchester's own The KTNA sisters for opening the show here, battling mic issues to go on and deliver their own powerful performance, just weeks after they made history as the first artists to perform on stage at the new Co-op Live.

At the end of the show, Monae gives an empassioned speech on world politics, on championing equality and looking after one another. "Some of us know what hate feels like, we have to take care of us," she says.

She concludes her near Presidential speech to rapturous applause saying: "Joy is a birthright and I want that for all of us, not some of us".

Returning to stage for her encore like a cross between Michael Jackson and a mariachi musico, she channels the spirit of idols past with the funk of Make Me Feel and a moonwalk across stage.

A second encore sees her bend and twist the audience down "low low" so we're all practically on the floor, before an exuberant instruction to Come Alive for a euphoric, bouncing finale.

There are two more Janelle Monae shows at Aviva Studios this week, and my word if you have any chance at all of getting hold of a last minute ticket for this one, then do not miss your chance. This ranks as not only one of the best gigs of the year, but one of the best gigs I've ever been to.

This is a performance for our time, from one of THE performers of our time.

Setlist

Float

Champagne Shit

Phenomenal

Haute

Q.U.E.E.N.

Electric Lady

Lipstick Lover

Water Slide

Paid in Pleasure

Pynk

Yoga

I Like That

Encore

Make Me Feel

(song medley a capella)

Tightrope

Encore 2

Come Alive