Lorde review – 'nothing short of awesome'
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Version 0 of 1. Even before Lorde's show begins, extraordinary things are occurring. Normally, photographers shoot from the pit in front of the stage – the first three songs, before the performer gets too flushed and bug-eyed. This ritual is rarely questioned. Tonight, at this most un-run-of-the-mill Lorde gig, there are no snappers in the pit. They have been relocated to the balcony. You could read Lorde's exiling of the photographers at her second-ever London gig as an act of vain control- freakery. So Ella Yelich-O'Connor doesn't want close-ups: ooh, diva. Huge stars such as Beyoncé ban external photographers altogether and supply media outlets with their own, pre-approved, live shots, all to avoid looking like a gurning sweat beast. Another reading is more intriguing. The still teenage Lorde – possessor of Grammies, a Brit, and a seriously successful debut album – is flexing her developing muscle, doing pop performance her way. She wants to be closer to the front row, reckons her PR, without a lens up her nostril. She has the clout to make this happen. Her entrance, when it comes, is almost the opposite of an entrance. Wearing a loose tuxedo and channelling ringmaster, magician and groom, Lorde just strides on suddenly to sing Glory and Gore, an album track. Funereal chords accompany her, as do disembodied backing vocals. Most successful pop stars might have hired in flesh-and-blood backing vocalists by now. Not Lorde, who appears perfectly at ease in the digital realm. Indeed, tonight's gig sometimes has the atmosphere of a rave in an art gallery. The lighting around her is as stark and dramatic as her voice. Side-lit by strobes, Lorde twitches, the sort of invisible bee-swatting last seen being busted out by Thom Yorke. This is nothing like a conventional female pop singer show, and nothing short of awesome. And it's only the first song. A curtain soon falls to reveal some picture frames, ruched velvet, and Lorde's live drummer and keyboard player, whose long hair has grown considerably since the trio last played at Madame JoJo's in Soho nine months ago. A lot more has changed since the world first heard Royals, Lorde's anthem about how suburban teenagers see the pop life as preposterously unattainable, in late 2012. There have been umpteen deconstructions of how female pop stars should be, pitting the clever, buttoned-up gothic Lorde against motormouth exhibitionist Miley Cyrus. There have been Twitter beefs, including one particularly vile episode where the racism of trolls was directed against Yelich-O'Connor's boyfriend. There has been Lorde's befriending by Taylor Swift, a blond and perky yang to Lorde's witchy yin. It makes sense: they are hyper-intelligent, successful young creatives with many notes to compare. This pair of London dates is the first real opportunity most British Lorde fans have had to see Yelich-O'Connor in the flesh since Pure Heroine, her 1.5m-selling debut, came out last September. But even though the fact of Lorde gigging is new, these songs are, technically, pretty old (by pop standards, anyway). You wonder whether Lorde will just sing the hits or refresh her material. Playing anything new this far ahead of any putative second album release would be commercial madness. She plays the album, but in a way that refreshes it, toning up the strangeness while still providing spectacle and singalongs. The electronics seem even more bold, the arrangements even more sparse, her vocals, more gospelly on the chanted songs (Biting Down), the spaces between the notes, greater. The other tracks Lorde is famous for – Tennis Court and White Teeth Teens – come as rushes of pleasure in quick succession. Tonight's choice of cover is the Replacements' Swingin Party, the 80s guitar pop of the original reimagined as a churchy minimalist paean. Even better than those is the least familiar track tonight, Easy – a track by New York producer Son Lux that Lorde used to cover but has since recorded with its author. The comparison with Thom Yorke isn't just confined to Lorde's dancing now; she is thoroughly at home with roiling, skittish electronica. One could argue there is a sameyness to Lorde's set, a coupling of her soulful husk with churchy R&B moods. Mixing it up is not what she does. For some reason, she runs off stage and comes back for the encore wearing a billowing golden gown, redolent of Kate Bush. It's a dive in the dressing-up box that chimes splendidly with something she says earlier, about her fear of growing up, and losing the childish hope that you can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do. • Kitty Empire reviews Kasabian's new album |