Current:Home > NewsBillie Eilish tells fans, 'I will always fight for you' at US tour opener -Dynamic Wealth Solutions
Billie Eilish tells fans, 'I will always fight for you' at US tour opener
View
Date:2025-04-20 20:25:04
BALTIMORE – Like any good pop star, Billie Eilish knows what to do when a bra is thrown at her onstage: Strut around with it dangling from your finger, of course.
She was bounding through the second song of her set, the slithery “Lunch,” when a few undergarments rained onto the stage. It was but one acknowledgment of affection from the disciples in a sold-out crowd that actively bounced, fist-pumped and mimicked Eilish’s hand gestures for 90 unrelenting minutes.
The multiple-Grammy-and-Oscar winner, 22, unveiled her spectacular in-the-round production at Baltimore’s CFG Bank Arena Friday, the first U.S. date of her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour. Eilish will play arenas around the country through December, performing multiple nights in several cities, before heading to Australia and Europe in 2025.
The football field-sized stage of this new tour is her multimedia playground, a slick behemoth featuring a lighted cube with a floating platform for Eilish to perch atop, speakers that dip from their suspensions, scooped-out sections for the band and busy video screens blasting to every side of the venue.
In her mismatched tube socks, backward baseball cap and dark jersey bearing No. 72, Eilish looked like the Sportiest Spice of her generation. But the biker shorts and fishnets capping her casual-cool look truly exemplified the Eilish touch.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
More:Meghan Trainor talks touring with kids, her love of T-Pain and learning self-acceptance
Billie Eilish spotlights authenticity, three albums
There is no artifice to her. No questioning her level of sincerity when she tells fans at the end of the show, “I will always cherish you … I will always fight for you.” No doubting her level of commitment as she builds into the roar of “The Greatest.” No probing the reason behind her wrinkled nose smile after romping through the pyro-spewing “NDA.”
Eilish lays out who she is and that vulnerability is rewarded with a fan base that heeds her command for a minute of silence so she can loop her vocals for a beautifully layered “Wildflower” and spring into the air during the blooping keyboard riff of “Bad Guy.”
For this tour behind her third album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” Eilish, whose taut band was minus brother Finneas, off doing promotion for his new solo album, pulls equally from her trio of studio releases. She lures fans into her goth club for “Happier Than Ever’s” “Oxytocin” and swaggers through “Therefore I Am.”
Her 2019 debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” is represented with a blitz of lasers and the murky vibe of “Bury a Friend” and a piano-based “Everything I Wanted,” which found Eilish loping around the inside of the stage gates to brush hands with fans.
And her current release, which flaunts the soulful strut that roils into a pop banger- aka “L’Amour De Ma Vie – as well as the most sumptuous song in Eilish’s catalog, the show-closing “Birds of a Feather,” received numerous spotlight moments.
More:Coldplay delivers reliable dreaminess and sweet emotions on 'Moon Music'
Billie Eilish soars on 'What Was I Made For?'
Eilish adeptly balances the Nine Inch Nails-inspired industrial beats of “Chihiro” with the swoony “Ocean Eyes,” her voice ping-ponging from under the swarm of sounds from her club hits to the honeyed tone of her ballads.
As the brisk show tapered to its finale, Eilish sat at one end of the stage, the arena glowing in Barbie-pink lights, and spilled out the first whispery words of “What Was I Made For?” She hasn’t disregarded the depth of the song, despite its ubiquity, and this live version infuses the weeper with the pulse of a drumbeat, turning the award-winning song into a soaring arena power ballad.
Onstage, Eilish stays true to the title of her current album, hitting fans hard and soft in all of the right places.
veryGood! (2)
Related
- What to watch: O Jolie night
- 'Incredibly rare' dead sea serpent surfaces in California waters; just 1 of 20 since 1901
- Jonathan Bailey Has a NSFW Confession About His Prosthetic Penis for TV
- Inside the Love Lives of Emily in Paris Stars
- Nevada attorney general revives 2020 fake electors case
- The Aspen Institute Is Calling for a Systemic Approach to Climate Education at the University Level
- Premier League highlights: Arsenal and Liverpool win season's opening Saturday
- Inside Mark Wahlberg's Family World as a Father of 4 Frequently Embarrassed Kids
- Selena Gomez engaged to Benny Blanco after 1 year together: 'Forever begins now'
- Infant dies after being discovered 'unresponsive' in hot vehicle outside Mass. day care
Ranking
- Selena Gomez's "Weird Uncles" Steve Martin and Martin Short React to Her Engagement
- Are there cheaper versions of the $300+ Home Depot Skelly? See 5 skeleton decor alternatives
- Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord fights on: once in Vietnam, now within family
- Are there cheaper versions of the $300+ Home Depot Skelly? See 5 skeleton decor alternatives
- Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
- Scientists think they know the origin of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs
- The-Dream calls sexual battery lawsuit 'character assassination,' denies claims
- Shootings reported at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland between guards and passing vehicle
Recommendation
Travis Hunter, the 2
Liverpool’s new era under Slot begins with a win at Ipswich and a scoring record for Salah
Stranded Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams' Families Weigh in on Their Status
Yankees outfielder Alex Verdugo finds out he's allergic to his batting gloves
Newly elected West Virginia lawmaker arrested and accused of making terroristic threats
Lawyers for plaintiffs in NCAA compensation case unload on opposition to deal
Jonathan Bailey's Fate on Bridgerton Season 4 Revealed
Shooting kills 2 and wounds 2 in Oakland, California