IN THE CROWD: BRITS WEEK 2025 BEGINS WITH CAT BURNS

Performing in the intimate and tightly-packed venue of Moth Club in Hackney, Cat delivered her first performance of the year to a crowd that oozed with love for her.

It’s the week before the BRIT Awards and BRITs Week 25, delivered by DHL for War Child, kicked off a star-studded week of performances with Cat Burns. BRITs Week is produced by AEG Presents, BPI, DHL, and War Child, and all proceeds from this week’s shows will go towards the War Child charity, who do incredible work helping to provide protection, education and mental health support for children devastated by war. 

Performing in the intimate and tightly-packed venue of Moth Club in Hackney, Cat delivered her first performance of the year to a crowd that oozed with love for her. Entering the stage through the same side door as the audience, Cat dons her trademark black beret atop her long twists, and wears a white top paired with a black leather jacket and black jeans to match. On stage she is joined by her all female band and remains illuminated under golden lights, that are also aware of what a star she is, and she opens up the night with a huge performance of ‘Alone'.

After performing her first two songs, Cat takes a moment to catch her breath and tells us about the upside down day she has had, which included leaving the house in sliders and forgetting to bring her actual shoes! “It’s been one of those days,” she says, “so don’t judge me if I get any of the words wrong, just help me out.” No judgement or help proved necessary, as Cat delivered an empowering version of ‘Live More and Love More,’ which seemed to inject another level of energy into an already electric crowd.

It may have been five months since Cat’s last performance, but she is a natural onstage. When she isn’t rocking out with her incredible band and sliding across the stage with the presence of someone who has been doing this for decades, she is deftly navigating the declarations of “I love you” and crowd confessions with an honest charm and quick wit. Though perhaps caught off-guard by how much the front row called out to her, Cat’s crowd management is fantastic and she gently steers us back to the music.

Where Cat started off agonising over all the ages she’ll soon be turning, it makes for a refreshing change of pace as she slows the tempo down a bit and begins chatting to us like her best friend again. She’s come to realise the importance of affirmations and finding peace, so how apt that the next lines she softly croons are, “my old self has been laid to rest/ now I'm ready to become my best/ oh, I'm healing, feeling, growing and unlearning.”

As the band begins to take us into ‘You Don’t Love Me Anymore’, to which a symphony of “ooh’s” ring out, Cat informs us with a laugh, that the rendition of sad songs will soon be over. Yet, I don’t think Cat is more beautiful than in these moments when the drums and backing track have quietened enough for us to hear the full effect of her soft voice and we are left with nothing but the vulnerability of her lyrics and the guitar to accompany her.

She soon had the crowd bouncing on their feet again as she performed her infamous rendition of Wheatus’ ‘Teenage Dirtbag’, but with a new setlist incoming, we soon find out this is the last time she’ll be singing this song live. A quietly confident swag entered Cat’s performance as she debuted her latest single ‘GIRLS!’ and given the track is less than a month old, Cat seemed happily surprised as the crowd began to sing the lyrics back to her. I think she may have underestimated the Sapphic tension in the room and the power of her devoted fanbase.

The only person perhaps having more fun on stage than Cat, was her phenomenal drummer. During a thundering penultimate performance in which Cat exited the stage, her drummer quietened just enough so calls of “one more song!” could be heard, and Cat made a not-so-surprising return to the stage. Allowing the audience to takeover one more chorus, Cat was serenaded for the final time as her biggest hit to date, ‘Go’, filled the room and she exited the stage the same way she entered: to deafening applause. A special night for a truly special cause. What could be more fitting.