Billie Eilish on stage at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Photograph: Henry Wu
Billie Eilish inspires devotion.
This is Eilish’s fifth time in Australia. She was 15 years old when she came down to play two small club shows in 2017. Plenty of people at last night’s Melbourne show have been following Eilish ever since, their love deepening as Eilish ascended from teenage wunderkind to global megastar.
A large cohort of the majority femme-presenting audience paid homage to Eilish’s signature look, wearing bandanas, oversized US sports jerseys, Air Jordans, and bike pants under basketball shorts or baggy jorts.
Meanwhile, is there any artist in contemporary pop music whose fans scream louder than Eilish’s? After rising out of an illuminated cube, Eilish performed the first song, “CHIHIRO,” on top of a platform that dangled high above the stage. I feared the velocity of the screaming would knock her off. (She was, thankfully, secured with a bulky chain.)
The screaming didn’t abate all night. At one point, my plus one – my older brother – said, “I don’t see how this is any different to Beatlemania.” I agreed, though to be fair, when I took my mum to see Paul McCartney the year before last, she was also screaming pretty hard.
If anyone wasn’t screaming, that’s because they were singing along – or in the case of the tween superfan standing behind us, yelling every word at full volume, key and melody be damned.
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Photograph: Henry Wu
The show was oriented towards Eilish’s latest album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. While not praised as lavishly by critics and other musicians as Eilish’s two previous LPs, it’s on track to be her most commercially successful release. The album contains an even spread of emotive ballads, lithe pop songs, and dancefloor-igniting bangers, and the setlist followed suit.
The production was more elaborate than during Eilish’s 2022 performance at the same venue, which featured Eilish, her brother Finneas and drummer Andrew Marshall performing in front of video projections but with little other fanfare. This time, a custom stage occupied a considerable chunk of Rod Laver Arena’s GA standing area, allowing Eilish to perform in-the-round. Pyro was deployed liberally throughout the show, and a late set performance of Charli XCX’s “Guess” was backed by a heckload of BRAT-green lasers.
Finneas was missing in action, but Eilish’s band had grown to include six people, including Marshall, a guitarist, bass player, keyboardist and two backing vocalists. The latter pair pulled up a seat next to Eilish for a mid-show acoustic sequence, the high point of which was a tear-jerking rendition of “Your Power,” a song about a man in denial about dating an underage girl.
Eilish introduced the song by expressing her embarrassment at the state of US politics. Someone yelled “Fuck Trump,” causing Eilish to let out a rueful laugh. She then addressed the women in the room: “I want you to know you’re safe here.”
Photograph: Henry Wu
There were tears aplenty as they moved into “SKINNY” and “TV,” but it was the fleshy and subtly twisted dance and heavy rock songs, such as “bury a friend,” “THE DINER,” and “bad guy,” that made the biggest impact.
In contrast to a typical mainstream pop show, there was no dance choreography and no costume changes. But Eilish’s inexhaustible energy and the half-dozen or so video screens hanging above the stage were enough to provide the blockbuster thrills of an arena spectacle.
The show’s arc was no doubt planned out to a tee – several camera operators followed Eilish’s every move – but the performance still felt messy and playful, as though the kids had expelled the teachers and taken control of the school.
This feeling of spontaneity was particularly evident during “bad guy,” the Eurodance remix of “L’AMOUR DE MA VIE,” and the closing sequence of emo power ballad “Happier Than Ever” and breezy pop gem “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”.
Billie Eilish appeared lifted up by the screams of devotion, and a feeling of deliverance permeated the arena, causing some to consider forking out $300+ for a resale ticket so that they could do it all again the next night.
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