I was fortunate to see versatile pop star Billie Eilish for the first time, on the last leg of her phenomenal Hit Me Hard and Soft LP tour (she played three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden a year ago), where, through state-of-the-art cinematic LED video screen & light stagecraft, pyrotechnics & a confetti eruption, and indefatigable running energy, Eilish turned a pleasant but anodyne suburban arena into everything from a pulsating nightclub to an acoustic coffeehouse to an intimate jazz bar in a tour de force of a concert.
At 23, Eilish is in a liminal and vaunted creative space: she is already an industry pro with a raft of GRAMMY & Oscar awards, LP sales (70+ million) that would intimidate veterans, and an army of followers surpassing 100 million. Yet she is simultaneously a developing artist who continues to push boundaries with her shifting sound in a quiver of hit single arrows she co-writes/produces with her brother Finneas (who wasn’t present at this show), encapsulating an array of musical genres (hyperpop, emo, goth, piano balladry, dreampop, indie pop, hip hop/trap) that are bullseye-aimed through her expansive, lustrous voice that continues to evolve with a whisper growl-to-belting soprano sparkle tone that conveys the pinpoint emotions expressed in her darkly dramatic lyrics with astounding nuance.
Surrounded by a sold-out, awestruck & screaming crowd of mostly teenagers & tweens (some with happy-to-be-there parents) who were dressed in Eilish’s iconoclastic style (for a female pop star) of brashly-colored baggy streetwear & sport-style jerseys, bandanas & backwards baseball caps, the show opened with Eilish descending on a floating platform in a translucent LED cube to rapturous cheers that persisted throughout the tightly-sequenced 95-minute, 22-song set (some of the numbers were shortened, which is a good way to make it feel like a greatest hits retrospective), as she breathlessly traversed the 360° stage to connect with her acolytes, while occasionally shifting to sitting, including during a single, gradually-honored request for total silence when she did a 1-minute vocal loop intro for the basis of show-stopping debut LP gem “When The Party’s Over”.
Eilish’s vocal prowess (when not drowned out by the persistent fan hysterics/sing-alongs) thrilled on both earlier hits and recent LP material, which has her best tunes yet, including the endlessly fascinating 2024 single “Birds of a Feather”, which stealthily skewers the stereotypical pop song ideal of eternal romantic love with sweet hooks that pierce the dark side of obsession, the inner monologue reckoning of the emotional magnitude toll of a failed relationship on the intense acoustic guitar ballad “The Greatest”, the queer-exploring, bass-driven dancefloor groove of “Lunch” (kind of a gender-swapped reverse funhouse mirror of her 2019 smash single “Bad Guy”), and the goth noir slink of “The Diner”, a first-person cautionary tale about the frightening shadow of fame from an obsessive stalker fan’s POV.
Other highlights included Eilish’s 2023 new pop standard “What Was I Made For?” from the Barbie movie (later covered by Paul Weller for a BBC session), her keyboard-driven medley that included hypnotic 2015 debut single “Ocean Eyes”, the introspective desire twister “Everything I Wanted”, and a surprise version of the Jules Styne / Sammy Cahn standard “I Fall in Love Too Easily” (only the second time she’s performed it), first released in 1945 by Frank Sinatra and later brilliantly covered by Chet Baker, which she silenced the crowd (perhaps because they had never heard this song before) with an interpretation worthy of Julie London. I wish she had included her sweeping 2020 James Bond theme “No Time to Die” in the set, but overall, this was an A+ show in substance and execution, living up to the promise of the tour title by leaving exiting attendees in a mood of euphoric exhalation & exultation.
SetlistIntro (contains elements of “The Greatest”)
Chihiro
Lunch
Nda (shortened)
Therefore I Am (shortened)
Wildflower
When the Party’s Over
The Diner
Ilomilo
Bad Guy
The Greatest
Your Power
Skinny
I Fall In Love Too Easily (Frank Sinatra/Chet Baker version of a Jules Styne / Sammy Cahn song)
Bittersuite (Transition / Interlude)
Bury a Friend (shortened)
Oxytocin (shortened)
Guess (Charli XCX collaboration cover)
Everything I Wanted (shortened)
Blue (Interlude / Intermission)
Lovely / Blue / Ocean Eyes
L’amour De Ma Vie + extended “Over Now” version
What Was I Made For?
Happier Than Ever (shortened)
Birds Of A Feather
Blue (outro)
