So I ended up falling asleep as soon as I got home, which is good as it means I had no energy left after the show. I’ll give some thoughts, but the pictures I took aren’t great so I’ll leave them out.
The stage setup was really nice. The backdrop was a giant LED screen, and the entire walkable stage was also a screen. This allowed for some really cool visuals during the performance. There was a catwalk that stretched from the main part of the stage to about halfway into the GA area. On piece of stage towards the back was able to fold up to turn into a ramp so Billie could walk up and interact with the band and Finneas could come down for a few spots, like the end of All the Good Girls go to Hell where the end is just bass. On the other side of the venue where I was sitting there was a second little stage which had a hydraulic lift so Billie could perform above the crowd. She used this for Overheated and the medley of older songs that followed. The production value was insane, something I’m not used to as the only artist I’ve seen with comparable fame and success is Metallica, who use their production money more for pyro and fireworks, which Billie had none of. She did have fog, lasers, and strobes, which add so much to a concert.
Her touring band is still minimalist, with a drummer stage left and her brother playing bass, keys, guitar, and auxiliary percussion stage right throughout the night. The rest of the instrumentation was played through backing tracks, but the live drums really added a lot of energy to the performance. Both musicians were set up way towards the back of the stage, but Finneas moved around quite a bit and Your Power was used as a spot to have him sit with Billie at the front of the stage with them both playing acoustic guitar on the song.
Now onto the actual performance. She opened with Bury a Friend, which is my favorite song of hers. She has so much energy it’s insane. She’s jumping around on stage, running from end to end, doing back bends, dancing, all while actually singing, and other than the slow songs, she did this the entire night. The girl is a born performer. She made a point to make everyone feel like they were part of the show, addressing the nosebleeds, encouraging crowd interaction, and overall just oozing charisma. At one point she had everyone take out their phone flashlights and had us do the wave with them. It’s a silly thing but it served to bring the entire crowd together.
I also loved how genuine and kind she came off as. Every time she addressed the crowd to tell them to jump around or dance, she always said “if you’re able” and said if you can’t that’s perfectly fine, acknowledging anyone with a disability and letting them know they’re still a part of it no matter what. During Getting Older, as she looked at the footage of her as a child playing behind her and then looked out to a sold out Madison Square Garden in front of her, the reality of her success hit her and she broke down crying. She powered through the performance after a brief moment of having the crowd sing along, which we were doing anyway. She admitted as such after the song, and jokingly said “well that’s embarrassing and hopefully it won’t happen again”. During Lost Cause, as she was sitting at the edge of the stage in front of the GA area, a bunch of fans handed her flowers during the line “I sent you flowers” and the timing of it made her crack up laughing. At the end of the show her, Finneas, and the drummer slid down the ramp in a moment of post show bliss. During these moments you heard no vocals, proving that she’s actually singing. These little things really made her stand out as a humble, genuine, kindhearted person. It was an absolute joy to see that come out in the performance.
Going back to the performance, I have never seen a show quite like this. The combination of a few instruments and backing tracks found the perfect middle ground between the energy of live performance and the safe predictability of tracks. The show always felt live, and it also went off without a hitch. Billie is absolutely incredible, she didn’t miss a note, and as noted above, she was actually singing the whole show (you could hear her heavier breathing during the more energetic moments of the show as well). It was a technologically flawless show, and the little human moments, mostly from her, added to the show instead of taking away. It’s very rare I don’t have a complaint about a concert as I’m usually very critical, and while I did miss My Future, it’s absence from the set didn’t hurt the show, as every song felt like it was where it should be in the set. She played for two hours and it flew by. This is probably the best show I’ve ever seen as far as everything coming together perfectly, and I will now make it a point to see her every time she comes around to the NYC area.
Topic: Billie Eilish (Read 5343 times)
