When Lorde first performed at Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2014, her face possessed a certain youthful fullness, the pains of growing up not quite evident yet. The burgeoning 17-year-old artist had released Pure Heroine one year prior, an album riddled with teenage petulance and naivety. Now turning 30 in November, the New Zealander returned to the festival and performed at the T-Mobile stage for a muggy 1 hour, 25 minute headlining set. Lorde closed out Saturday night no longer baby-faced but toting hits from since-released albums Melodrama, Solar Power and Virgin.
Lorde, whose real name is Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, opened with her 2013 breakout single “Royals,” a track she penned at 12 that went on to win her two Grammy awards. She fiddled with her white Arc’teryx jacket and matching pants, unzipping to reveal a cropped grey tank top while background dancers created silhouettes in Virgin blue lighting. The track — heavily referencing the drug MDMA — sent waves of ecstasy into the eclectic crowd, further worsening the silty bogs forming.
Melodrama made its first appearance with “Perfect Places.” The Jack Antonoff-produced 3 minute, 41 second track offers a fleeting window into the experiences of love, lust and shame from a distinctly 19-year-old perspective. The BRIT-award winning artist continued the sexual simmer with “The Louvre,” which she paired with a short monologue about having a crush and “sweaty summer horniness.”
However, much like the album name suggests, the infatuation is short-lived and often results in heightened negative emotions towards self — sentiments apparent in “Hard Feelings/Loveless” and “Liability.” Fans turned to each other and belted the lyrics that have stood the test of time, relatable from petty teenage spats to soul crushing heartbreak. The artist gyrated atop a clear sheet of plastic while singing, the humidity clinging fiercely to her face and body.
Solar Power made a cameo with “Oceanic Feeling” before being shelved for fan favorites “Green Light,” “Supercut” and “Team.” The singer raised herself on a platform and simulated piercing her heart with the microphone stand while performing “Man Of The Year,” a physical manifestation of the confusing, chaotic grief that accompanies choosing oneself over a relationship. In the same vein of healing, the artist played an abbreviated rendition of “Girl, so confusing” with a Charli xcx-sized hole.
The nostalgic synths of “Ribs” reverberated from the speakers to a delighted audience, forming pits not in the crowd, but within concert-goers’ stomachs in forced reflection of trading youth for growing older and wiser. Before she performed the track in its entirety and concluded the night, Lorde imparted wisdom upon concertgoers.
“Keep dancing, keep doing drugs … keep moving,” Lorde said. “It’s important to get comfortable with that feeling of freedom.”
