Lorde – Western Springs: March 4, 2023: Concert Review

Lorde – Western Springs: March 4, 2023

Lawdy Miss Lorde! The international pop sensation from down home Auckland performed a love-fest for a large family crowd on a perfect Western Springs evening.

Ella Yelich-O’Connor has Croatian and Irish parental roots and grew up in the heart of Auckland city. Like most overnight sensations, there was a long period of gestation. She was identified as a prodigy at age six. Started writing and singing before high school. Performed in school bands and got the attention of a major music label for development whilst attending Takapuna Grammar.

The Victoria Theatre in Devonport was her first public appearance. She tells us that performing at Western Springs tonight is again like down the road from home. A surreal experience, which is the feeling conveyed to us too.

Leaders of the New Regime (from the album Solar Power) and Homemade Dynamite (Melodrama) gets the show rolling. The signature sound of minimalist indie pop with synth beats. White trousers and vest, matched to long blond looks and she has the distinct air of Madonna when she has a reigning female overlord of pop. Lorde has a hand on that crown.

Her stage performance has been described as unchoreographed, spontaneous free-form dance. Awkward and confronting at times. Tonight, she conveys a sensuous snake dance, a seductive embrace to the crowd. An expressive face which is captured on the big screens in tight close-up cameras. It looks well-rehearsed and flows easily.

This is her Solar Power tour, delayed since 2021. The stage design emphasises the stark and surreal. A large sun orb in the background, a smaller one on stage. A ladder which appears to reach up into the heavens towards that golden globe is the main prop around which she and the musicians perch.

David Bowie regarded her as the future of music. Similar to him she is theatrical in presentation, and not a conventional rock or standard pop performer. She easily bleeds and bends genres. More pop than Laurie Anderson, similar melodic hooks to early Talking Heads.

Marlon Williams joins for a te reo version of Stoned at the Nail Salon, one of the highlights tonight. It retains it’s lyrical quality, but now also has the tone of a lament.

Marlon Williams

He plays a super little show before the headliner.

Great and distinctive voice to the fore as he starts solo with acoustic guitar, and a gospel-sounding waiata.

Follows that with a blues intro of woke up this morning which is pure Robert Johnson. It is Devil’s Daughter and it’s much different to the familiar recorded version with Kacy and Clayton. A measured Mississippi country blues.

A sweet slide guitar heralds the rest of the band coming on. A series of familiar tunes follow. They run through an eclectic mix of country rock, western twang, Beatles ’65 to Sgt Pepper, Seventies pop soul heading towards disco.

Dave Khan is there, playing fiddle, guitar and keyboards. The musicians’ musician.

My Boy gets a rousing welcome of familiarity.

With his voice moving through the backgrounds of Fifties vocal pop and doo-wop, to classic Sixties melancholy blue-eyed soul, he stakes his credentials as a post-Roy Orbison operatic tenor.

He’s even played him in a movie.

Lorde

The sound mix is a bit muddy and lacking definition in the lower range. It is fixed by Fallen Fruit. A multi-faceted indie pop song, with changes in tempo and an air of psychedelic theatre with three guitars intertwining.

There are seven band-members behind her in various combinations throughout the show.

The Path is the opening track of Solar Power and is a perfect example of her literary approach to music. Born in the year of Oxycontin is a superb opening line and opens into a song of unease and dread inside the trappings of fame, celebrity and wealth. The air of foreboding that was Bret Easton Ellis and his debut novel Less Than Zero. He writes with a lot of musical references, and it’s only a matter of time before he discovers Lorde and gets back on his horse. Or else Ella will do it herself. Both were similar ages with their debut works.

California is similar. It embraces the Laurel Canyon dream with nice synth melody hooks and ends with the line Don’t want that California dream. Definitely David Lynch and possibly Tarantino.

Liability has a single guitar play a simple minimal riff to lead you in. The music is given lots of space to breathe which lets the songs open out. There is some jazz phrasing in the vocals.  She calls it a personal song for freaks. Name checks the familiar places around the area. Grey Lynn Park, Cox’s Bay, Western Springs Gardens.

She covers Goldenhorse’s Maybe Tomorrow and segues straight into Secrets From a Girl.

Mood Ring has clever lyrical wordplay, wrapped around an uplifting pop melody. One of the guitarists seems to be doing sign language alongside her.

Perfect Places and Supercut gets everyone jumping, like a huge melting pot which has just reached the boiling point.

Solar Power captures classic Madonna. I hate the winter/ Can’t stand the cold/ But when the heat comes/ Something takes hold. Then they build it to a peak.

To close the show, the deep bass drops heralds Royals, of course. We’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams. Careful and precise imagery.

Team does take it out with the artillery tattoo of the bass drum.

The Lorde show is a great melodic and literary indie pop performance. Coming in both under and over the radar. Sure to hit you somewhere.

Rev Orange Peel