Ashnikko @ O2 Academy, Glasgow, 11 Feb

Emerging from the “little door at the back of my purse”, as she calls it, Ashnikko tumbles onto the stage of the O2 Academy tonight like Alice diving into a bubblegum pink wonderland. Having made a name for herself online not only for her songs, but the quirky, provocative and colourful aesthetic vision that is apparent in her stage design, like a life-sized Polly Pocket, she straddles the line between flirty and controversial; big neon signs make offerings of “full frontal lobotomies here” and there's a “2 for 1 boyfriends” special.

Flanked by her two dancers, Ashnikko herself takes centre stage and opens the show with recently TikTok-famous Sticky Fingers, getting the crowd moving. The somewhat playful, somewhat dirty essence of the stage design is apparent in her lyrics as well, and the crowd are here for it: the playlist encompasses both songs off her most recent album Smoochies, including the tongue-in-cheek I Want My Boyfriends to Kiss and the singalong-friendly Trinkets, as well as older, equally explicit songs.

The beauty in Ashnikko’s lyrics is that she not only seems to celebrate ideas of girlhood, but she shamelessly accepts and defends the dirty, the odd and the disgusting aspects of it. The crowd are clearly here for it: her announcement that she is currently “free-bleeding in Glasgow” is met to thunderous applause. There is a delightful weirdness, an unconditional acceptance to the way she interacts with her audience that seems to really strike a chord. She seems to exist in a world where taboos are made cutesy, where we are allowed to be, according to her, “nasty and sexy and beautiful all at the same time.”

Image: Ashnikko @ O2 Academy, Glasgow, 11 Feb by Kate Johnston

Meanwhile, the stage transforms into a glittering haunted house as Ashnikko embarks on niche fan favourites Halloweenie. While she and her dancers dominate the stage like dolls with dislodged limbs, the visual spectacle fails to completely distract from the fact that a little bit of the momentum is lost during this spooky interlude and some of the lyrics teeter on the edge of obvious.

Still, she manages to keep the crowd engaged. Between offering her trademark “trinket trade”, inviting audience members to hurl their oddest possessions at the stage for Ashnikko to inspect (“a tampon.. A pickle!”) and crowning TikTok star Millie “Whatsername”, whose Scottish rendition of Sticky Fingers achieved recent TikTok fame, her “Smoochie Girl” of Glasgow, she puts on a show that is everything the audience have come to expect from her and more.