Shania Twain Plays Smallest London Show in Over 20 Years at Dalston’s Shacklewell Arms

Shania Twain’s Saturday night set at the Shacklewell Arms wasn’t a warm-up. It was a deliberate reversal. Next week, the Ontario singer opens twelve nights at Wembley Stadium as support on Harry Styles’ tour. But first, she walked onto a small stage in Dalston in a black mesh bodysuit and boots, greeted a sold-out crowd of 200, and told them, “Welcome to my very first time in a small bar… not ever! But since I was a child.”

The hour-and-fifteen-minute show traced an arc from that childhood to the present. Twain, backed by her five-piece band, framed her career as starting in bars long before her Nashville deal arrived in her late twenties. She aired her new single, “Dirty Rosie,” from the forthcoming album Little Miss Twain (due July 24), then moved into decades-old material. “Any Man of Mine,” she noted, “has a bit of attitude.” Three songs from 1997’s Come On Over followed—the title track, an acoustic “Still the One” led like a choir rehearsal, and a muscular “That Don’t Impress Me Much.”

Twain handed decisions to the crowd later, pulling acapella phrases from shouted requests: “When,” “God Bless the Child,” “From This Moment On.” Though she once swore she’d never sing a cover after signing her contract, she broke that rule twice, calling Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” a tribute to “one of my Gods” and closing with “Cotton Eyed Joe.” She left them with a clear-eyed summary: “It took 52 years to get from Ontario to the UK, and I am just so happy to be here and be reliving some of my youth with all of you.”