Lizzo brings light amid darkness at Sydney Opera House show
American superstar Lizzo has given her Australian fans a chance to forget their worries and to smile and dance as her joyous, pulsating show nearly blew the roof off the Sydney Opera House.
Music
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American positivity pop phenomenon Lizzo felt the weight of expectations when the classically-trained-flautist-turned-global-chartopper realised a long-held ambition to perform at the Sydney Opera House on Monday night.
This was a gig she had dreamt of for years, and it didn’t stop there; her headlining sideshows on the FOMO festival tour in Sydney and Melbourne sold out in mere minutes.
The Truth Hurts superstar has been in Australia for a week, right when the bushfire emergency escalated, and she has been sharing her despair at the devastation, while encouraging donations from her millions of fans worldwide.
As Lizzo was greeted with what may have been the loudest roar heard in the Sydney Opera House, outside a squad of volunteers mustered to collect donations.
“I wanna let you know how much I feel so connected to you guys right now during these bushfires that are plaguing this nation and destroying wildlife and animals and homes and I just wanna let you know, more than my heart going with you, I am with you every step of the way,” she told her screaming fans.
“I want to go to the Sydney Opera House, see if I can sit in for the first-chair flautistâ€. That’s what @lizzo told me in August when I asked her about the possibility of playing the Sydney Opera House. And tonite she did it pic.twitter.com/UCGKYfr0an
— Kathy McCabe (@McCabeRadar) January 6, 2020
“The things that are happening here are happening all over the world and we’re so disconnected sometimes and we can seem so far away from each other but this is one earth.
“Anything that I can do, anything else that I can do, let me know.”
What Lizzo can do – and so many of the musicians rallying to support victims and promote climate science awareness – is offer the welcome distraction of entertainment when the country is collectively pretty damn depressed.
So Lizzo did exactly that with a body and building shaking performance with sides of motivational call and responses to unite young, old and in between fans.
From the opening of the pop gospel of Good As Hell to the closing of the shouty anthem of Truth Hurts, Lizzo’s human sunshine meets “100 percent that b***h” sass brought on megawatt smiles, impulsive bouncing and deafening cheers and singalongs.
As a friend remarked, it was Oprah meets Beyonce meets Celeste Barber meets Rihanna.
With her Big Grrrl dancers and DJ Sophia Eris, Lizzo thrilled the eclectic crowd, affirming the power of music to unite across the ages from little girls proudly wearing their homemade T-shirts with their equally excited parents to the infectiously euphoric LGBTQ+ community.
Lizzo gave her all. Her honesty and humanity have been as responsible for growing her fanbase of millions as her unique fusion of rap, soul singing and undeniable pop smarts. Her voice cracked when she spoke about cuddling koalas and kangaroos just days before the distressing images of their mass demise in the fires were shared with the world.
But she knew her fans needed her brand of musical medicine, so she pulled herself together to deliver a vocal masterclass on Cuz I Love You and was rewarded with an almost minute-long ovation and waves of relentless cheers.
Juice was a highlight, so was her moment with her beloved Sasha Flute – the instrument has her own Instagram page – when she performed that song again in the encore to celebrate her dream of playing the Sydney Opera House, having trained as a classical flautist.
And while no one would wish her harm, there was a moment of hilarity early in the set when she suffered a self-inflicted cut on her hand courtesy of her weapon-like fingernails which required some mopping up before she could go on with the show.
Lizzo performs at the Forum in Melbourne on Wednesday, FOMO festival at Parramatta Park on January 11 and at the Melbourne Showgrounds on January 12.
Originally published as Lizzo brings light amid darkness at Sydney Opera House show