Doja Cat gig review: Boss Bitch struts the stage at 3Arena, Dublin
A recent image of Doja Cat, who played 3Arena in Dublin on Tuesday. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Global Citizen)
It’s an hour into the show on Tuesday evening when Doja Cat finally locks in. Up to this point, the LA pop-rap provocateur has seemed oddly detached, going through the motions as she drifts through a setlist that, up to this stage, mostly pulled from her latest record
This is not helped by the the sound issues. We are only hearing bits and pieces of the portions where she’s rapping.
But then we get to a three-song run from — her fourth album and the one she told the was like releasing “a massive fart” — and something seems to crack open.
On she writhes around the stage’s catwalk, tangling herself in the wire of a handheld mic as flamethrowers and fireworks explode on the beat. During she stares down the camera lens like it’s the barrel of a gun and she’s daring you to shoot.
“Fuck all em other albums on repeat,’ she spits. “Fuck what y'all been sayin', I "ain't for the streets.” “I’m a sell out all my seats to see me live,” she continues, “was a sellout ‘till I notice I got drive.”
And therein might lie the issue — this crowd doesn’t think Doja is a sellout, but, having returned to a more commercial pop sound with her latest release, does she?
The LA artist, who blends breathy pop vocals with punchier rap verses, has always been a controversial, contrarian figure. She could have been, and perhaps should be, one of this generation’s bone fide crossover pop-rap stars, but there's still a sense she hasn't quite reached her potential.
Doja Cat has frequently found herself drawn into social media rants and spats, refusing to play the popstar game long before Chappell Roan was talking about boundaries. But, beyond her bizarre tendency to fight with her own fanbase, the bigger problem is she has repeatedly dismissed her own work as soon as she moves on to the next thing.
In May 2023, she tweeted “planet her and hot pink were cash-grabs and yall fell for it”. (By the end of that summer, after she further told her 'Kittens', the fandom's appointed name, to "get off [their] phone and get a job", she had lost half a million followers).
Her fourth and latest record returns to pop, this time leaning into a nostalgia 1980s Janet Jackson sound aided by pop producer of the moment Jack Antonoff (Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, etc).
Tuesday’s show in the 3Arena has all the bells and whistles – pyrotechnics, smoke, flamethrowers, fireworks, a superb band and two backing vocalists who double up as dancers – of a spectacular production, and when Doja hit her stride, she was a captivating ringmaster.
On the singer bemoaning the kind of man we all know, riling the crowd up to join her as she spat “I'll call your fucking mom... go get a fucking job!”, she laughed manically into the mic as she continued that theme on while finally got some of the seated crowd to their feet as she jumped around the stage shouting “I am a bitch, I am a boss.”
But every time the set returned to more polished pop, the atmosphere deflated somewhat.
Days before Doja Cat kicked off the European leg in Dublin, she told “I think I want to take three years off... I want to just do whatever.”
Hopefully she does, and when she comes back, she'll give us the five-star gig she's totally capable of.
