Inside, The Powerstation felt exactly right for Audrey Hobert at this stage of her career. Sure, she’s already pulling huge streaming numbers and viral clips move around TikTok like currency, but there’s still something intimate about her music. These songs don’t feel designed for giant stadium screens yet. They feel handwritten. Scribbled in Notes app drafts at 2 a.m. while lying sideways in bed.
And honestly, that intimacy made the night work.
By 8pm (yes an early showtime with no opener) the lights dropped with little warning and suddenly there she was, emerging in one of those costumes that looked deliberately absurd and weirdly theatrical all at once. Stilts. Oversized coat. Fake nose. The kind of visual joke that could collapse instantly if the person underneath it didn’t fully commit. But Audrey Hobert commits to everything.
She opened with I like to touch people, which remains one of the funniest and smartest opening tracks released by a pop artist in recent memory. It’s playful, awkward, and emotionally invasive all at once. The crowd screamed every lyric back immediately, which seemed to catch even her slightly off guard.
That became a running theme through the night. There was confidence, but also disbelief. You could sense her processing the whole thing in real time.
The production leaned intentionally scrappy. Blackouts between songs. Minimal stage setup. Three band members weaving in and out of costume bits and fake props. At one point her cousin wandered onstage for the now-infamous fake saxophone section during Thirst Trap, miming the solo so dramatically the crowd completely lost it.
It should have been ridiculous. It was ridiculous. But it also worked.
That’s the trick with Audrey Hobert. She understands timing in the same way great comedians do.
A lot of artists try to manufacture relatability now. Hobert goes the opposite direction. She leaves the rough edges exposed. One minute she’s talking about insecurity and feeling ugly as a teenager, the next she’s joking about fried rice waiting in her fridge. The emotional pivots happen quickly, but somehow they mirror real life better than most carefully polished pop performances.
And musically, the songs hit harder live than they do on record.
Wet Hair bounced around the room with punchy, nervy energy, while Bowling Alley felt like the soundtrack to every disappointing Friday night you’ve forced yourself through because staying home somehow felt worse. The crowd knew every word. Not in the detached “I streamed this playlist” way either. They sang these songs like diary entries.
Then came Don’t go back to his ass, which absolutely detonated the room.
The bridge turned into collective therapy. Drinks flew dangerously close to the sound desk. Half the audience screamed lyrics directly into their friends’ faces like they were trying to exorcise specific exes from the building. It felt messy and euphoric in the best possible way.
The rockier version of Sex and the city sounded especially huge inside Powerstation. On record, it already carries frustration and disillusionment, but live it became sharper and heavier. When Hobert spat out lines about adulthood failing to resemble television fantasy, the crowd responded like she’d articulated a collective quarter-life crisis nobody else had properly explained yet.
Still, the emotional centrepiece of the night was Phoebe.
Before starting, Audrey Hobert pulled on oversized sunglasses and joked that she might cry. The room laughed, but there was something fragile underneath it. Hearing hundreds of people sing back lyrics about insecurity and identity searching turned the room unexpectedly tender.
That’s the thing people sometimes miss about Audrey Hobert because the internet clips focus on the eccentricity and punchlines. Beneath all the absurdism, she’s an exceptionally precise songwriter. Probably unsurprising given her collaborative history around Gracie Abrams and Malcolm Todd, but still worth emphasising. Her conversational phrasing and hyper-specific details land with real emotional force.
By the time Chateau arrived near the end of the set, the whole room felt loose and euphoric. Hobert bounced across the stage with chaotic theatre-kid energy, completely unconcerned with looking traditionally cool.
Then came Sue me.
Phones immediately shot into the air. Which felt strange, honestly, because hearing a genuinely massive viral hit inside a venue this intimate creates a weird disconnect. It felt like watching somebody on the edge of levelling up in real time.
Pink and white lights flooded the room while the crowd screamed every lyric back at her. Then she did something brilliant. She asked everyone to put their phones away so they could do Sue me one more time.
No filming. No documenting. Just movement.
Suddenly the room transformed. People danced harder. Sang louder. Strangers grabbed each other’s shoulders during the chorus. The line “but fucking your ex is iconic” hit like a communal release valve.
Was the show perfect? Not remotely. The transitions occasionally dragged and, at under an hour, the set ended almost too quickly. But maybe that slight messiness is exactly why it worked.
Because Audrey Hobert right now feels exciting in the way emerging artists are supposed to feel exciting. Unpredictable. Slightly chaotic. Completely themselves.
Standing in a sweaty Auckland venue while hundreds of people screamed those deeply specific lyrics back at her, you got the sense this whole thing is only getting started.
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