New Zealand’s most famous teenager played her first show as part of a rescheduled tour on Saturday night but the show could have finished after just a handful of songs.
Ella Yelich-O’Connor, or Lorde as her fans know her, tweeted just hours before the show how glad she was to be playing in Perth.
While the WA capital may not have originally been the tour’s opening venue, a chest infection meant the tour was postponed for a couple of months and new dates had the tour starting in the west.
The 17-year-old immediately captured the audience with her song Glory and Gore, her sharp moves and confident stage presence.
Wearing a black pants suit with fitted black tank top underneath, performing against a black backdrop with just a chandelier above, Lorde did not need any fancy sets or costume changes to draw in the audience.
With only one full album, Pure Heroine, under her belt there weren’t too many surprises about the set list.
Biting Down and Tennis Court were popular with the crowd and Lorde was singing Buzzcut Season when she suddenly apologised to the audience and left the stage.
“I’m just not feeling very well, sorry can you just give me a minute,” she said.
If she was sick, it hadn’t shown in her performance up to that point but Lorde’s departure left the crowd wondering if yet another show would have to be rescheduled.
Luckily she made her way back on to the stage about five minutes later apologising profusely to the audience, attributing her absence to “something she had eaten”.
Lorde launched into Swingin Party and by the time she started 400 Lux, with images of suburban streets played on screens behind her, the audience was right back with her.
The unscheduled break did not affect Lorde’s performance, she continued to hit every note, and belt out every line.
While much of the audience seemed familiar with the songs from her album and even those from her EP, The Love Club, the Son Lux song that she sung on, Easy, was not met with as much love as the rest of the set.
You could have been excused for thinking the only Kiwi to reach number one in the US charts might have been used to playing big shows. But apparently not.
She said after starting out in small venues she was excited to be playing at Challenge Stadium, a venue that holds 4500 people and was mostly full for Saturday’s performance.
All it took was the first couple of words to her hit song Royals to get the crowd buzzing with excitement and have the audience there with her on every word.
After a huge response from the crowd, Lorde sang Team, the song that reached the top 10 in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US.
While Lorde may have been slightly less animated after the unscheduled intermission, the hiccup hardly seemed to make a difference to the show.
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This was definitely not one of those gigs where you see a lot of people sneaking off in that last song hoping to beat the crowds out.
After thanking the audience one last time Lord finished with A World Alone.
Lorde has a number of other Australian performances in next few weeks, with Adelaide next on her schedule.
July 8 Adelaide Entertainment Centre
July 11 & 12 Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
July 15
