What Is It Like to See Artemas Live?

The Voice Is the Plot Twist

The recordings lean on a polished, autotuned, bedroom-produced sheen, so you show up half-expecting a laptop-and-vibes set. Then he opens his mouth and sings it raw, in tune, with real range, and the whole read of him flips. At his Auckland finale in December 2024 the reviewer noted he traded his usual processed studio sound for live vocals and nailed it; a UK writer who has now seen him five times called his in-tune delivery the exact opposite of his shaky opening act. For an artist who broke on an app, "he's actually better live than on record" is the single most repeated reaction, and it's the thing that keeps skeptics from writing him off.

It's a Band Show, and That Reframes the Songs

Strip away the studio gloss and the songs get a body to them. He performs with a live guitarist and drummer, and the guitars push everything grungier and rockier than the streaming versions. "caroline" picks up a rock twist live that turns it into a mini pop-rock anthem, and "how could u love somebody like me?" gets a guitar solo that fans say finishes the track. He was mislabeled a DJ so often early on that even the Official Charts slipped, and he mocked it on X. The live band, plus the fact that he plays keyboard and has played guitar himself onstage, is the clearest rebuttal to that.

He Plays a Character, and the Character Is Horny and Theatrical

The lyrical persona is dark, hedonistic, and flirty, with song titles like "wet dreams" and "mess of me, sexually" that are the brand rather than the exception. That sybaritic character is matched to a visual aesthetic he has built across three mixtapes, and it holds up whether he's in a 500-cap club or a 3,000-cap room. He works the stage without pause, darting side to side and singing directly into the faces of the front row. When "i like the way you kiss me" hit its live version at the London Roundhouse in February 2026, the front rows were a wall of thousands of phones held up recording.

The Crowd Knows Every Word, Including the Deep Cuts

Because he built his audience by self-releasing new music every few weeks, the room sings back not just the hit but obscure tracks, louder than he expects. At his sold-out Village Underground finale in London in May 2024, the crowd sang early cuts like "enemies," "cross my heart," and "like an angel" back at him word for word. This is unusually deep catalogue knowledge for an artist this new, and it's a direct product of the constant-drop way the fanbase formed. If you only know the viral song, you'll be the quiet one.

The One Knock: He Doesn't Talk Much

Alongside strongly positive reviews, the most common fan criticism is that he's light on between-song banter. Fan reviews on aggregators like Bandsintown say it "would have been better if he interacted with the crowd a little bit more." He communicates through movement and by singing into faces, not through speeches. If you want a chatty, story-between-songs performer, this isn't that. He lets the pace and the songs carry it, and for most fans that reads as focus rather than coldness.