MUSIC
Lorde
Qudos Bank Arena, February 18
Reviewed by MICHAEL RUFFLES
★★★½
Pants on, pants off, pants on again. A thesis could be written about how Lorde lets cameras and lasers scan her body, focusing on navels and eyes and glitter and scratches, and what the Ultrasound Tour says about being a young female pop star in the aftermath of Brat summer.
But fundamentally, this is intimacy on a grand scale: dancing in the dark like no one is watching, be it a nightclub or a bedroom, just with 16,499 others at Qudos Bank Arena on a school night.
That the 29-year-old singer-songwriter was able to take us along on the alternately hedonistic and voyeuristic journey using mainly downbeat, introspective pop songs is a testament to how good the tunes are.
The staging was simple but effective: two dancers provided engagingly shambolic company, the band had a cameo, and Lorde put her entry in for the award for Best Use of a Treadmill in Pop Since OK Go. But it was essentially a one-woman show, a great singer with top pop songs.
Concussive beats and piercing lasers signalled the start, as Hammer launched proceedings in blunt and invigorating fashion. A cappella start to megahit Royals showcased Ella Yelich-O’Connor’s vocal prowess, and gave a refreshing twist to a classic heard a million times since it launched her career (and half a dozen others) 12 years ago.
Buzzcut Season was also an early highlight, and the risk was it might be all downhill from there.
The new material was patchier: all of 2025’s Virgin album got an airing and while What Was That, Man of the Year and GRWM can stand alongside her best, others were less successful. The robotic Clearblue was an admirable experiment, but unless you’ve had the album on repeat it could have stayed there.
Not that stretching herself as an artist has served Lorde badly: two tracks from the divisive third album Solar Power were among the night’s highlights and gave the setlist nuance and diversity. Lorde finished with early hit Team, the euphoric Green Light and oldest song Ribs, a safe but very sound conclusion.
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