On the 13th of October, South-African pop star Tyla made a stop at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live as part of her ‘A*Pop World Tour’. Tyla arrived on stage about 10 minutes later than expected. The crowd started chanting her name while waiting for her to take to the stage. When she finally arrived, she immediately caught everyone’s attention. There was a curtain across the stage, revealing her and her dancers coming up, but their faces were still behind the curtain. They performed a choreography before the curtain dropped and revealed their faces. The crowd went wild at that. The stage design was simple but effective. There were scaffoldings, like a construction site, and attached to the structure were multiple elastic or rubber bands that could be used by the dancers and by Tyla herself. The poles which formed the structure doubled as poles for poledancing. The structure provided the perfect aerobatic playground for Tyla and her very athletic dancers. With some projections and cool light effects, the whole picture created some stunning visuals.
When Tyla performed ‘Truth or Dare’ she was on stage with a male dancer who was seemingly trying his very best to impress her. The choreography contained lots of ass-shaking from both the boys and the girls. Later on in the set there seemed to be a mock fight happening between the dancers. Tyla disappeared from the stage for a while while the dancers fought in the form of a dance battle. When the pop girl appeared on stage again, she was met with some of the loudest cheering so far. When the intro for ‘IS IT LOVE’ started, the crowd went wild. She performed this song alone, without her dancers. It somehow felt quite intimate to watch her perform all alone on such a big stage.
When the lights in the room went on, Tyla exclaimed an enthusiastic ‘Wow!’ before flirting with some of her fans. She announced that the next song she would perform was the pinnacle of a love song to her. She asked the fans who had come with someone they loved to hold them close, and to put their flashlights up. She took place before a glittery curtain to sing ‘ART’. “Last night in Paris, I asked them to make the room rumble,” Tyla said, and her message was received loud and clear. The whole room started to stomp their feet on the ground, but Tyla wanted to hear it even louder. Only after she was satisfied with exactly how loud the fans made the room rumble, she performed one of her biggest hits, ‘Water’. For this hit she brought a fan on stage to sing along with her. The last verse he got to sing solo and he got all the applause he deserved.
Before her second biggest hit, the stage was rebuilt with white panels appearing on the stage and dancers seemingly dancing on treadmills. When she did sing ‘CHANEL’, the crowd cheered her on with enthusiasm. When Tyla addressed the crowd again, she specifically addressed the girls this time. She said she wanted to learn from the girls. “Do you like your guys nice? Do you like them kind or mean?” She next showed exactly how she likes her guys when performing ‘MR. NONCHALANT’
Tyla did not leave her fans unsatisfied, as after she left the stage she came back for an encore. She sang ‘SHAKE AH’ as the encore, which was an interesting choice. It was not necessarily a fan favourite, however, it was the perfect song to party to. Together with her dancers she sang the song and they danced like no one was watching. The encore seemed to be a glimpse of what partying with Tyla must look like. The South-African pop queen proved with this concert that she deserved to be on that stage, a bigger stage even. Hopefully we’ll get to see her conquer those bigger stages in the near future.
