Lorde Solar Power tour review: singer near-perfect at first Australian show in Brisbane
The usual trajectory for an artist who finds fame at 16 is a swift rise followed by a hard fall. In Brisbane last night, the Kiwi pop queen left the crowd with a new-found respect.
It had been a muggy, dreary day in the Queensland capital, one where cloud cover had kept the humidity hovering over the city like a woollen blanket.
On an outdoor stage that night, Lorde was feeling the effects: within a few songs, the large screens bearing her image showed droplets trickling down her bare torso. That uncomfortable feeling was mutual: for the 9500 or so people at a packed Brisbane Riverstage, even those standing still were sweating.
Wednesday had the makings of a tough night at the office for the performers in particular. Thankfully, though, it was one of those occasions where the spectacle at hand was so overwhelmingly engaging and attention-grabbing that you were distracted from what was pooling in the lower half of your body.
It helped, too, that the headline attraction is an ardent fan of summer, having written many of her songs during that season, and so she met the moment with poise, good humour and a complete performance that underscored precisely why she belongs alongside the likes of Billie Eilish, Beyonce Knowles, Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift, as one of today’s formidable pop queens.
Now 26, the New Zealand singer-songwriter born Ella Yelich-O’Connor has spent her whole adult life globally famous, having cracked No.1 on the world’s pop charts in 2013 with Royals, her debut single. She was 16 at the time, and became the youngest artist in 26 years to top the US Billboard Hot 100.
Finding such popularity at the beginning of a career can be a blessing or a curse, but for her, it was the former. The songs from her debut album Pure Heroine and its even stronger 2017 follow-up, Melodrama, soundtracked her adolescence with the expert narrative eye of a weathered novelist. Her storytelling was eminently relatable; her voice never less than true, pure and unique.
Her third collection Solar Power, released in 2021, took the unexpected step of soundtracking her young adulthood by taking a distinct step away from electronic pop in favour of acoustic instruments, slower arrangements and densely layered vocal harmonies.
Yelich-O’Connor’s sonic shift was one that required patience, and in a fast-paced world, that quality can be hard to find. On record, the surprising artistic left-turn divided her audience, and Solar Power lacked the cultural staying power of its two predecessors. But happily, in the live setting, those songs make much more sense, and the evolution between works old and new is much clearer and coherent.
This tour went on sale in 2021, too, before being postponed due to the pandemic. Two years later, rather than opening a world tour, this part of the planet – including a recent visit to her home country – is where Lorde and her bandmates are ending a run of shows.
Two years feels like an eternity when you’re a teenager, as thousands in attendance at the all-ages show on Wednesday night could attest. The harsh truth is that the delay was for the best: what we saw at the Riverstage was an immaculately choreographed, thoroughly drilled and expertly mixed concert.
That the capacity crowd was ready to let loose was evident from the opening moments, as thousands of voices bounced down the hill, past the band and off the brick wall behind them. It must have been deafening for the performers at times, even with in-ear monitors, so enthusiastic was the crowd response.
It was a joy to watch and hear what her songs mean to her audience, which has always skewed young. It was easy to imagine plenty of parents and guardians walking away with new-found respect for what this young woman has to offer.
What she and her bandmates projected was smartly composed pop music that speaks directly into the ears of those in the process of growing up and finding themselves. Cleverly, and perhaps unintentionally, this quality will likely mean that her fanbase stays young even as Yelich-O’Connor herself grows older.
There is a real art to capturing the heady rush of hormones and emotions that characterise youth. Her songs are about love, heartbreak, doubts, certainties, passions, drinking, dancing, recreational drug experimentation, waking up in different bedrooms, walking strange streets on late nights: the beating heart of life itself.
The lyrics to her best song, the 2017 single Green Light, contain references to almost all of the above, wrapped in a pulsating, piano-led musical arrangement that climbs toward an ebullient chanted chorus. When it appeared near the end of the show, the crowd danced as one and sang those wonderfully evocative and hopeful words – “I’m waiting for it / That green light / I want it” – at stunning volume.
With a production set on and around a central staircase which functioned as a rotating sun dial, the songs were delivered with a commanding looseness of a well-drilled troupe; one that knows them inside out, having now played more than 65 shows on this world tour, yet able to reprise them with faithful vitality.
Wearing matching suits – to be taken straight to the dry cleaners at show’s end, one fancies – the seven supporting musicians were unobtrusive but on point. This was particularly apparent on the songs of Solar Power – they aired 10 in all – which demanded remarkable control from the vocalists, resulting in harmonies so rich they practically cut through the muggy air.
In Yelich-O’Connor herself, we saw an effervescent master of ceremonies with the capacity to easily shift between conspiratorial intimacy in her mid-set banter, and awe-inspiring domination during the songs themselves. With several costume changes and much attention paid to lighting, camera angles and stage presence, she came across as an artist at the peak of her powers.
For plenty of the children in attendance on Wednesday night, this was likely among their first live music experiences. It went unremarked from the stage, but the beginning of this Australian tour fell on International Women’s Day, and what a wonderful guide young girls have found in her.
The usual, expected trajectory for a person who becomes famous as a teenager is a swift rise followed by a hard fall; bucking that trend, Lorde continues to ascend, and where she might end up in another 10 years is inspiring to consider.
Before she took the stage, The Beatles’ Sun King was played over the speakers, and 100 minutes later – after an encore composed of two undeniable classics from her debut in Royals and Team – the poetic symmetry of that choice was too striking to ignore. As she farewelled her adoring crowd, there was little doubt we’d just witnessed a near-perfect set from a radiant Sun Queen.
Lorde’s Solar Power tour continues in Melbourne (Friday and Saturday), followed by Sydney (Monday and Tuesday), Adelaide (March 16) and Perth (March 18).
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