Ari Abdul and her entourage flew in from New York City for the first night of the UK & EU Change Tour at SWG3 in the West End of Glasgow. We covered Ari’s show at The Garage back in August 2024 and we were delighted to have the opportunity to do an interview for Bring The Noise. Since that last tour the track that went viral on TikTok and launched her career – BABYDOLL – has amassed over one hundred million more streams proving that the dark-pop/alternative sound produced by Ari Abdul is becoming more and more popular.
The support for this part of the tour is panicbaby, the Berlin-based artist has a very unique music style and is playing in Scotland for the first time tonight. We made sure to have a listen to debut EP release f u Jonathan that was released just last month. The lead track from it Claw Marks has amassed over seventeen million streams already, which are impressive numbers for a relatively new artist. Other Boys Are Boring and Avoidant Bitch are other highlights from the half hour set while a new unreleased song was played for the first time tonight. 7/10
The excitement amongst the crowd reaches fever pitch as Ari Abdul takes to the stage at 8.45pm to a massive roar from the younger crowd (we pushed the average age up by a few years though!). It was a very intense start to the set with Girls On The Internet, Dreams and Bury You, all sang perfectly by the Brooklyn star, Ari is joined by guitarist Constance Antoinette and Nick on the drums and all three perform with high intensity keeping the energy levels high. Ari tells us that this is her second time playing in Glasgow and a female fan responds “you kissed me last time you were here!”, she is struggling a little with the Scottish dialect but heard enough to know what she meant.
Slow Dancing is an early contender for the best of the set, helped massively by the outstanding guitar work from Antoinette. Ari’s vocals are spot on tonight with every track played during the eighteen-song set faultless. Taste and HUSH are both great crowd pleasers as the phones light up around the SWG3 venue, a cover of Britney Spears’ Toxic has a section of the crowd screaming once again. We are lucky enough to get to hear two new tracks for the first time live tonight – So Good and EGO being them – we can report that both sounded really good. We hope this means more new music for 2026, possibly even a debut album, she has certainly written more than enough songs to do so. Worship and Haunt Your Dreams has the singer connect to the crowd and using the full stage to interact with the fans. The encore has the unreleased EGO and DON’T before the song everyone has been waiting for … it is Ari’s debut single in 2022 and the song that began her journey to stardom … yes it’s time to unleash BABYDOLL and is well worth the wait.
Before playing the last song of the night BABYDOLL, Ari is handed a couple of Scottish saltire flags which she immediately wraps around herself before guitarist Constance Antoinette gets the crowd screaming with another superb guitar solo with Ari waving the saltires towards Constance like in a bullring. The crowd are delighted when BABYDOLL suddenly moves into the sped-up version ending the set in perfect style. The music of Ari Abdul is well loved in Glasgow as could be seen all around tonight and the next time she comes to town they may need a bigger venue. The tour now continues in England before moving across to Europe for a few shows but we definitely set the bar high tonight. 10/10
Written by: Alan Brown
