Natalie Jane at Outernet

There is a power, unique to the teenage girl, whereby they can make even the most heartbreaking ballad feel fun – and that is Natalie Jane’s USP. To a crowd dressed as Sims, green dragons and lipstick-stained lab technicians, she jokes: “You bought the ticket, so you know it’s gonna get sad.” Over the course of the show, beginning with a more drum-pumped rendition of, Any1 but Myself, Jane reinvents the languid reputation of a music catalogue drenched in angst and longing, through a forceful performance of her love-drunk tracks.

The American artist, who came up through TikTok, knows how to wind up a crowd, teasing upcoming tracks with clever intros. Jane throws out the rhetorical question “R you gonna love me?” before launching into her single of the same name, and plays a mock public announcement, informing us that “We’ll be passing the butterfly garden” as she then proceeds to sing Butterflies. It’s like watching the beginnings of a more PG Sabrina Carpenter, who has become infamous for her innuendo-filled stage patter.

In fact, there are traces of many other artists throughout her performance. Her dancing is all arms and hair flips à la Addison Rae at Coachella, her signature powerhouse vocals and falsetto during 4ever are all too similar to Ariane Grande’s infamous sound, and the first performance of her as-of-yet unreleased track, Meet Again, has an electronic disco vibe to it, reminiscent of Kylie’s 2023 album, Tension. What this does is mark Jane as a star set for the mainstream, far beyond the parameters of her current online fandom.

She does what many ballad musicians struggle to achieve throughout their careers: keep the tempo alive (and prevent the crowd from talking). Jane does this by upscaling the expected production setup for this genre of music and maxxing the percussion in her tracks. A supped-up version of I’m Her, complete with a deafening drum section and bass line, rounds off the show. But it is the 12 old Hollywood-style spotlights, circling the artist in a final audience-whooping trick, that solidify the final night of her UK tour as a lesson in sad-girl-pop as theatre.