By Eve Davies, Music Deputy-Editor
Ask me what first pulled me into music and I’ll give the obvious answer: the internet. I grew up on webcam confessions and bedroom pop, when dodie and Conan Gray were still posting grainy YouTube clips instead of headlining tours.
Chloe Moriondo was part of that same wave. A digital-age rite of passage, her songs were passed around Tumblr dashboards and teenage playlists like secret currency.
So standing in the sweat-drenched crowd at The Fleece for the penultimate night of the Oyster (2025) tour didn’t just feel like another show. It felt like a full-circle moment: an artist who’s long outgrown the bedroom stage without losing the intimacy that made her vital in the first place.
After a quick stop at the bar (tap water for me — freshers’ flu doesn’t discriminate, even in third year), we found our spot just as the house lights dimmed. Ocean visuals flooded the stage, a countdown pulling us underwater.
By the time the crowd hit ‘one’, Chloe bounded on with her drummer and bassist, launching into the buoyant opener ‘Abyss’. ‘I just wanna dance’, she grinned, giggling at the faces pressed close to the stage.
Her energy was impossible to resist. it was fizzy, bright, bouncing off the hook itself. My friend leaned over to whisper that she looked and sounded like a pixie, and it wasn’t wrong; her laughter ricocheted through the room like another instrument.
I last saw Chloe at Thekla in 2022, and the growth since then was striking. On this stage she was everywhere at once — darting across the floor, soaking up every cheer — and the crowd matched her energy beat for beat.
The Oyster tracks fuel that intensity. ‘hate it’, ‘7seas’ and the title track lean less on guitar-led hooks and more on pulsing electronics made for movement. But she still slips easily into her older catalogue, which longtime fans like me relished.
The Blood Bunny (2021) cuts landed hard, especially ‘Take Your Time’, which Chloe introduced as her personal favourite and insisted she couldn’t imagine a set without. For those songs, she brought out her guitar, affectionately named ‘Kitty’, and we all said hi. The small ritual felt like a time capsule from her earlier shows.
For the newer fans, she turned conductor. Teaching us a quick call-and-response, she had the whole room reaching back to our primary school assembly days, belting a collective ‘woooooo’ on cue.
The ‘sad song’ section, which Chloe teased in advance, was handled with equal confidence. In a show as pop-forward as Oyster, slower moments could have dragged, but she held the room with ease. It helps that her audience was built on YouTube, back when it was just her, a ukulele and unfiltered lyrics. That intimacy still anchors her, even in a set stacked with glossy pop bangers.
Then came the cover. Last time I saw her it was Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’; this time she chose Mitski’s ‘Liquid Smooth’. Her voice cut straight through the song’s devastating core — clear, aching, perfectly pitched. It’s always risky to take on a track like that, but Chloe made it her own.
Naturally, there was an encore. She returned with ‘Fruity’ from SUCKERPUNCH (2022). It’s a jittery, electronic track with hyperpop edges and vocoder-tinted vocals that lit the floor up again. The song is pure fun, a reminder of how well Chloe balances playfulness with polish.
The closer, of course, was ‘I Want to Be With You’, the track that jumped from headphones to Netflix’s Heartstopper. Before starting, Chloe thanked the queer community (her own community) for the support that has carried her this far. Then, with ‘Kitty’ slung over her shoulder, she grinned and strummed the opening chords. The room didn’t just sing along; it took the song back, hundreds of voices claiming it at once.
Eve Davies
What began as songs recorded in a bedroom has become something far louder, stranger and stronger. At The Fleece, it felt like watching that transformation hit its stride.
Featured Image: Eve Davies
Have you ever seen a childhood favourite grow up on stage?
