Shania Twain Plays Tiny London Pub Before Wembley
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Shania Twain performed a one-hour set for just 200 ticketholders at the Shacklewell Arms in east London, with the pub transformed into an old-school saloon complete with complimentary cowboy hats and bandanas
- Twain opened with new single "Dirty Rosie" and told the crowd it was "[her] very first time in a small bar since [she] was a child," saying she started playing bars from age eight under the name "Little Miss Twain"
- The intimate gig was part of the rollout for Twain's seventh studio album, Little Miss Twain, due 24 July, which she described as focused on her pre-recording-contract years playing bars until her late 20s
- The show doubled as a warm-up for Twain's first-ever Wembley Stadium appearance, where she will support Harry Styles on his 12-night mini-residency
- Fans traveled from across the UK, including a Scottish attendee on his eighth time seeing Twain, while the setlist skipped the obvious closer — "Man! I Feel Like A Woman!" was not played, with Twain instead exiting to a cover of Cotton Eye Joe and chants of "one more song"
- Canadian culture writer Elamin Abdelmahmoud called Twain "the consummate crossover act" who proved "country music is fundamentally who I am, but that does not mean I have to sacrifice the ambition of pop"
Why it matters: The 200-capacity Shacklewell Arms is roughly a 90,000-seat swing down from the Wembley stage Twain will hit weeks later, and the timing — coming three decades into her career and just before her first Wembley headlining support slot — reframes the album rollout around her bar-singer origins rather than arena spectacle.
Ask SkimNews
