There’s something so liberating about standing in a venue full of predominantly young queer people and watching someone who is unapologetically queer singing about life, love, the in-between, and the confusing coming of age experience. British rising star Beth McCarthy united a community with her anthemic pop-rock tracks while she made her Australian debut for a run of sweaty and energetic headline shows.

Closing out the East Coast run in Sydney at the Factory Theatre, Beth didn’t hold back in bringing the full-throttle energy for a chaotic Sunday night. Looking around the packed room, my heart felt so full seeing so many predominantly young queer women and non-binary people looking so joyous and so seen by how confident Beth’s stage presence and performance was. Opening with “What Do You Call It?”, she launched into a 90 minute set full of storytelling, big singalongs, shoey’s, and a lot of dancing. 

Something that became fast knowledge is that her crowds know every single word and they didn’t hold back with songs like “No Hard Feelings”, “You Ruined Love”, “First, Best, Hottest..” And “She Get’s The Flowers” all happening early into the set. With a growing discography, Beth performed a couple of unreleased tracks including the savage “Best Friends Couch”, the vulnerable “What If I Never Make It?”, the choreography fuelled “XOXO”, and the anthemic “All My Friends Are Hot”, which approximately took 30 seconds to get stuck in my head. 

Announcing to the crowd that this was her last show for the year, she kept some surprises up her sleeve and brought out opening act Carla Wehbe to perform a ridiculously fun cover of “So What” from P!nk. Steering into the final section of the show she turned up the volume a little louder for “She’s Pretty” and “IDK How To Talk To Girls” before jumping into the crowd and making her way on-top of a table for closing track “Good Bi”. But before she performed that song she brought her viral TikTok’s to life by playing matchmaker with the crowd and asking different audience members to give each other pick-up lines. Throughout the show she was having a good yap with the crowd, telling them stories from touring, about her hot friends, and even got emotional as she reminisced on the journey so-far.

With just her and a drummer on stage for the duration of the show, she still managed to make it feel so large with her undeniably captivating and personable energy. Beth McCarthy is a natural-born performer who commands your attention the second she walks on stage and holds it until the moment she leaves. I found myself smiling ear-to-ear the entirety of her set, and I already cannot wait to see how she continually grows the show by the next time she’s down under.