Dua Lipa @ Manchester Apollo, 15 Apr

Dua Lipa is one of those women who has it all. 22 and on top of the world right now, or at least well on the way to being on top of the world. In the year since her debut album was released, she’s had a stack of hits here and in the US, bagged a couple of Brit awards (as well as being nominated for a bunch more), and toured with a number of high profile sorts (Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Troye Sivan). She is, by anyone’s estimation, either a superstar or in the immediate superstar waiting room.

We catch up with her on the second of two sold out nights at the Manchester Apollo and the crowd are so giddy you’d probably find it hard to believe it’s a Sunday night. From the moment Lipa appears, silhouetted behind a gigantic dust sheet that drops as she and her band bust into Blow Your Mind (Mwah), we're in a world where there are more people holding up phones than not holding up phones, where holding up phones isn’t accompanied by tuts and eye rolls from the majority of people in the room (where, in fact, those people not holding up phones are looked at as if there is something wrong with them). 

Flanked by a pair of dancers, a pair of backing singers who also dance, two multi-instrumentalists and a drummer, eyes, for the most part, remain on Dua Lipa herself. She dances and sings with the kind of pronounced theatricality that you know comes from attending the Sylvia Young Theatre School, the premier pop finishing school (which gave us Rita Ora, Amy Winehouse and half of All Saints – which just about sums up the constituent parts of Lipa herself). But it doesn’t matter how learned her act is: Lipa is loved by the audience who would, you imagine, give just about everything they own to be her. She is the epitome of pop cool.

And whilst there are moments during the set where you can see why people love her (when the audience sing louder than the PA during Be the One, when the entire set floods with colour during Hotter than Hell), it isn’t until the final two songs – IDGAF and New Rules, which whip the audience into a frenzy like a gigantic pop tsunami – that you realise: it doesn’t matter what a Yo La Tengo fan thinks of Dua Lipa. She is a colossus bestriding the planet of pop. We are but ants beside her unit-shifting majesty. And like all good subjects, we fall to one knee, doff our hat and salute. [Pete Wild]

I haven’t been to as many gigs as my dad. This is more like my first gig – picture me doing the ‘mind blown’ emoji. I’ve liked Dua Lipa since Be the One and Hotter than Hell and it was great she played those. I like her because she’s super pretty and glamorous and she’s a top dancer and don’t even get me started on her voice. The best bit was when she started swearing her head off when IDGAF was on. My dad was so embarrassed. I sang along to New Rules the most. Everyone at my school was jealous. Not only did I get to see Dua Lipa, I also got to review for The Skinny. I may or may not have been bragging about my t-shirt too… [Martha Wild, age 10]