The sun had set on the main stage by the time Lorde came out and surprised us with her blonde hair. She drew a large crowd who had been watching and wondering about her elaborate stage set-up while waiting for her to begin. She began with an angelic performance of “The Path”, while on the stairs of her spinning set, and then warmed us up with “Homemade Dynamite”. We were all endeared to Lorde’s feelings of how landing in Victoria felt like her home, New Zealand, and how she knew that people who understood nature would get her album Solar Power. It was refreshing to see an artist who tours so much not looking too overdone with hair and makeup. She seemed like she would fit in if she decided to move to Victoria. Her musings with the crowd certainly endeared us all as the show went on.
There were times when the crowd singing seemed louder than the system, specifically in the acoustic ballad of “Liability”, from the album “Melodrama”. This is where the performance really picked up steam throughout the whole crowd. Her biggest hit, “Royals”, rang throughout the streets (with no reference to her late majesty), as we squeezed the last drops out of Rifflandia. Lorde transported us into a romanticized end-of-summer sandy beach day to help us cope with the chaos that can be our modern world. We all found ourselves longing for warm summer nights to last a little bit longer as the night faded into cool darkness. The crowd belted out the 2021 hit “Solar Power” as if to say, we’ll pull on this moment in the cold depths of winter to remember our tanned, day-drunk selves. We all put a bit of yellow confetti in our pockets to seize the moment. She left us with “Team” to bring everyone together and leave our hearts feeling full. We howled together as though to vow that we’ll come back to this moment when we need it.
