On Friday, 16 October, Paris Jackson made her London debut, bringing her songs, stories and humour to a sold-out room for an evening centred on music, personal connection and the people who came to share it.
Speaking to the audience, Paris expressed how much it meant to her to see people come together to hear her music — songs that are deeply personal and sincere, shaped by experiences she chooses to share through her writing. She also spoke about wanting to play larger venues in the future, leaving room for the possibility of bigger shows ahead.
There was something immediately appealing about the atmosphere. Paris made space for conversation throughout the evening. People called out from the audience, and she responded with a remark, a story or an observation that caught something funny in the moment. She seemed entirely at ease, open and unmistakably herself, allowing the exchanges to unfold naturally. It made the room feel less like a crowd watching a performer and more like a gathering among people connected through music.
A Conversation Between Songs
Some of the evening’s most memorable moments emerged in the exchanges between Paris and the people who had come to see her. One audience member told her they had written a song for her, while Paris dedicated a song to someone in the crowd. She also recalled a fan she had encountered in Amsterdam, bringing a memory from an earlier stop on the tour into the London room.
These were small gestures, but they gave the concert a sense of continuity beyond the stage. The people in the audience were not simply there to hear a set of songs; they brought their own stories, too. For a moment, those individual experiences became part of the evening’s shared narrative.
Before the show, Paris had also stopped at a bar opposite the venue for pizza. She told the audience that she had never found pizza quite like it in California. It was an ordinary detail, but a charming one: before performing, she had simply crossed the road to get something to eat. It offered a glimpse of Paris away from the stage, without the distance that can sometimes surround a famous name.
Music Made in the Moment
Throughout the evening, Paris returned several times to the idea of songwriting. It felt like more than a word she happened to use: writing songs seemed to sit at the centre of how she understands herself as an artist. The emphasis was not simply on performing music, but on creating something of her own — finding the right way to express a feeling, an experience or something that might otherwise remain difficult to put into words.
That focus gave the songs a depth beyond the performance itself. They felt personal without being over-explained, as though each had grown out of a particular feeling Paris had needed to explore and express. There was a sense of commitment to the craft: to making a song as honest, considered and beautiful as it could be, rather than allowing the finished product to become the only measure of its value.
Watching her perform, I was reminded that an artist’s relationship with music can be about more than visibility, commercial success or the numbers attached to a release. There is also the quieter, less measurable work of creating something because you have something to say — and taking responsibility for how truthfully you say it. Paris’s emphasis on songwriting brought that part of being an artist into focus.
The performance itself reflected the same spirit. Paris played with her band, adjusting instruments and sounds onstage together before moving into the songs. The musicianship was polished, yet the performance retained a sense of spontaneity. Emotion came through in the delivery, while the interaction between the musicians made the music feel alive in the room. It was not a choice between craft and freedom; the two existed side by side.
That freedom was part of what made the evening compelling. There was room for the music to breathe, for the songs to carry their own feelings, and for the performance to unfold without losing its human scale. In a musical landscape increasingly shaped by technology and the pressure to produce, Paris offered a reminder of the value of the creative process itself: the time spent writing, the feeling behind a lyric, and the decision to turn something personal into a song.
Mixed Up Everything Turn Up the Volume
Before Paris Jackson took the stage, Australian four-piece Mixed Up Everything brought a heavier rock energy to The Dome. The band consists of four brothers from Melbourne — Todd, Kevin, Blake and Koby Dhima — whose set combined original material with covers associated with Nirvana and Metallica. Their long, curly hair, guitar-driven sound and energetic stage presence gave the evening a distinctly rock-and-roll opening.
The brothers played with the ease of musicians who know one another instinctively, their guitar work and onstage chemistry adding to the intensity of the set.
Moving between familiar songs and their own material, Mixed Up Everything delivered a lively, confident performance that built momentum ahead of Paris’s set. They brought both the volume and the personality, making the support slot feel like a proper part of the evening rather than simply a prelude to the headliner.
What AI Cannot Replace
Between songs, Paris briefly alluded to the risk that artificial intelligence could take creative opportunities away from artists. Though it was a short remark rather than a lengthy discussion, it resonated with the ideas running through the performance.
There is a difference between producing a finished track and experiencing the human process behind it: writing from a feeling, working through an idea with other musicians, adjusting a sound and discovering what a song needs as it takes shape. At The Dome, that process was part of what made the music resonate. The musicians’ interactions and the decisions made in the moment were not distractions from the finished performance; they were part of what made it feel alive.
The point was not that technology has no place in music, but that the human experience behind a song remains difficult to separate from its meaning. A song can carry the particularities of a life, the uncertainty of a feeling and the individuality of the person who wrote it. Paris’s focus on songwriting made that connection tangible long before she touched on AI.
Looking Ahead
Paris also spoke about her hopes of playing larger venues in the future. At another point, someone in the audience called out an invitation to perform in Spain, which she received warmly. Neither exchange was a formal announcement, but both offered a glimpse of the possibilities she has in mind as her live career develops.
For this London show, though, the focus remained on the music in front of the audience. The songs gave listeners a chance to connect with something personal, while the live setting brought them into the same room as the person behind them.
After the concert, one fan described the experience on Instagram through the difference between voices we hear and voices we feel. It is a lovely way of putting something that can be difficult to describe in a review: sometimes a performance stays with you not because of one spectacular moment, but because of the feeling you take away with you. That was the impression Paris left at The Dome.
Photography by Hannah Jane Murrell
Instagram: @hjmurrell
You must be logged in to post a comment.