CMAT. No, it’s not a piece of medical machinery. It’s not a university entrance exam. What she is, though, is one of the greatest pop stars of our generation. And those who didn’t know this already got to know through her scintillating performance at 6 Music Festival last Friday, where she blessed over 3000 ears (and undoubtedly countless ears listening at home) with what can only be described as future camp, country classics.
Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson is no stranger to the BBC. Being a favourite of Radio 1’s, and having been on the longlist for the Sound of 2024, her fanbase have kiddingly nicknamed her ‘BBCMAT’ during the frequent crossovers. It was to no surprise, then, when I looked around upon entering the festival, that the barrier of one of Manchester’s widest (and most inconveniently placed) venues – the O2 Victoria Warehouse – was composed almost entirely of multi-coloured cowboy hats. Her rise to fame has been sudden, yes – due in part to her appearance on the Graham Norton show late last year, and more recently due to her sporting a ‘cheeky’, super low-cut dress exposing half of her ‘Irish craic’ on the BRITs red carpet – but this rise to fame is not at all unexpected. It was clear from the first instance I came across her music, nearing 4 years ago, that she was destined for stardom. It comes across in all aspects of her artistry; her songwriting, her voice, which has been accurately described as ‘Kate Bush-esque’, and crucially in the sheer energy she radiates onstage. And when she strutted on to start her BBC-televised set, the feeling that the crowd of both CMAT fans and 6 Music Dads alike were in the presence of a true celebrity was immediately apparent.
In the dimly lit warehouse, a silhouette takes centre-stage, and the unmistakable fuzz of album opener California’s guitar can be heard. The tension in the room is palpable as the crowd waits for the vocals to set in. As they do, spotlights fall on CMAT, displaying her ruffled red top and signature shorts. She is brandishing a stunning red acoustic, the night’s weapon of choice, and immediately her bright vocal performance pumps her infectious energy into the rest of the room. ‘I’m heading to California, don’t say I didn’t warn ya’, she sings, in a very meta sense, comparing her performance of songs written about past relationships to taking a movie to Hollywood in search of fame as retribution. In the song, the metaphorical movie fails, earning her a ‘Razzie’, but neither I nor the thousands of other astounded viewers could describe her performance of the track as anything but a raging success.
During her performance of Whatever’s Inconvenient, CMAT manages to use the intimidatingly large crowd as backing vocalists, and transitions into country banger 2 Wrecked 2 Care, in which she jokingly uses slightly more polite terms in replacement of the word ‘b*tch’. “If a lyric in my song seems like it’s making no sense, that’s because swear words are not replaceable!” she remarks later. After prancing around the stage during feel-good Have Fun!, the country songstress does not slow down, playing fan favourite No More Virgos, a UK first since her last album cycle. But her standout performance for the night, and perhaps the past year, comes in the form of an intensely intimate duet with John Grant. The pair stand hand in hand in the middle of the stage, and leave the audience in equal amounts of shock and tears during their rendition of Where Are Your Kids Tonight. In an interview with 6 Music’s Matt Everitt after the show, CMAT said “It was absolutely incredible. […] We’ve actually never done it together, ever, not live, because we recorded everything separately in the studio so that was literally the first time we sang it together”.
Even after witnessing one of the best live duets of the year so far, the Manchester crowd still managed to two step in perfect unison during Thompson’s hit single ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’, and the show ended on the gorgeous ‘Stay For Something’ a track that really highlights the strength of CMAT’s live band, and a retrospective look upon a toxic relationship, in which she chastises her former lover’s actions, while ultimately failing to reprehend him as a person. “They tell me I should hate you, say you put me through it, lord I know I used to but I just can’t do it!” She exclaims in a dramatic, cathartic manner, leaving the sea of 6 Music listeners utterly bewildered as to what they just witnessed. And what they had just witnessed, was the standout performance of the festival, and the birth of a star.
Images and interviews courtesy of the BBC.
Bacchanalia Magazine 
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