Rosalía live in London: religious ceremony meets techno rave

Rosalía’s dream, she tells the crowd halfway through the first of two sold-out London arena shows, has always been to play the famous Royal Albert Hall. “I never did,” she chuckles, “but now I sold out The O2 in London… twice! How crazy is that?!”

Indeed, it is quite crazy that a musician as fame-averse and avant-garde as this has become a global superstar, but this extraordinary show on the back of new album LUX – the standout record of 2025 – shows that with this craft, precision and talent, any arena in the world would be in the palm of her hand. She says it best herself on the thrilling ‘Bizcochito’: “I didn’t base my career on making hits / I have hits because I formed the basis.”

LUX, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and featuring singing in 13 languages, was a hugely ambitious triumph, and the live show aims for those same heights. Split into four acts, it begins with a Nutcracker-inspired first section in which she ballet dances across the stage.

The beauty of the show’s opening is then punctured by brawn in a beefed up second act. Rosalía changes outfit from white to black and sings the frenzied ‘Berghain’ (complete with a thumping techno outro) and highlights from 2023’s pop-leaning MOTOMAMI album while a swirling mass of dancers sway with her.

In the final section, a speaker billows smoke as it pendulums back and forth like incense at church, all to the chaotic soundtrack of ‘CUUUUuuuuuute’. To end the show, Rosalía ascends to heaven at the climax of final song ‘Magnolias’, then falling backwards to meet her end.

It all sounds – and is – pretty weighty stuff, high on drama and concept. What makes the show remarkable, though, is how inclusive she makes it. Every lyric is translated into English for the big screen, along with a note of which language she is singing in, adding context and weight to her consistently beautiful lyrics. “It’s a talent I was born with / I am the queen of chaos,” she sings in Japanese on ‘Porcelana’. “Because that’s what God decided.”

She is also disarmingly funny throughout, bringing levity and lightness to a show that could otherwise crumble under its own weight. After ‘Divinize’, in which she covers a portion of Dido’s ‘Thank You’, she threatens to throw water over the front rows before cackling at the idea. To feel like you’re laughing away with a friend seconds after she was setting fire to the earth with a world-beating performance is a triumph in itself.

Elsewhere, she tries to improve her English with help from the crowd, instead hilariously getting useless advice from an Italian fan, while a between acts video sees her backing dancers overdramatically mocking the performance of ‘Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti’ she just made. Later, she sings inside a picture frame while tourists gawp at her for a rendition of Frankie Valli’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’.

Before ‘La Perla’ – her unlikely hit that sees her eviscerating a “walking red flag” of an ex – she welcomes surprise guest Lola Young to the stage to share a secret in a confession booth. Young reveals that she slept with a married man, and innocently introduces Rosalía to the phrase “doing the deed”.

To exist in both of these modes across a show like this explains why Rosalía skipped the Royal Albert Hall and found her place in arenas. “I chose this path long ago, when I didn’t even know what the fuck it means,” she says of her career towards the start of the show. “I had no idea what I was getting into.” The “nomadic life” she has chosen “can be too chaotic, and even a little discouraging,” she says, “but I chose this, and I’ll choose it again and again and again.” That choice is our continued gift.

Rosalía played:

‘Sexo, Violencia y Llantas’
‘Reliquia’
‘Porcelana’
‘Divinize’
‘Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti’
‘Saoko’
‘La Fama’
‘La Combi Versace’
‘De Madrugá’
‘El redentor’
‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’
‘La Perla’
‘Sauvignon Blanc’
‘La Yugular’
‘Dios Es Un Stalker’
‘La Rumba Del Perdón’
‘CUUUUuuuuuute’
‘Bizcochito’
‘Despechá’
‘Focu ‘Ranni’
‘Magnolias’