Live Review

Lorde, Brixton Academy, London

6th June 2014

Tonight confirms Lorde is far more than a flag bearer for the misfits.

Words: El Hunt
Photos: Emma Swann
6th July 2014

The general consensus is that ‘putting on a pop concert’ these days should involve a complex equation mixing oversized novelty props, elaborate costumes and a lighting show that costs more to stage than a one bedroom flat in the area immediately outside the chosen venue. Delivering a performance from a giant inflatable hotdog that is suspended many feet up in the air is one approach, the slightly dubious donning of a kimono another. Tonight at Brixton, though, Lorde wears a bold, boxy tuxedo-type effort, and has assembled a kind of minimalist take on a baroque drawing room in a stately home. She’s brought along a chandelier, three massive picture frames, a drummer, and another band member to man the delivery of her killer synth chops, and that’s about it; at least in terms of physical spectacle. The main draw here tonight is Lorde herself.

“We're slipping off the course that we prepared, but in all chaos, there is calculation,” she sings quietly, in richly hushed tones, over slinking drum-chops. Opening with ‘Glory and Gore’ is an unexpected, but fitting, opening choice, and Lorde delivers it alone, lit unfussily by a single spotlight. The room is screaming in response at such frenzied volumes that the chandelier above the stage must be reverberating along at high frequency. ‘Biting Down’, a skittering, bare-bones offering from her ‘Tennis Court’ EP follows, bathed in dusky golden light. Lorde, doubled over in a flailing blur of jerking wrists and spinning hair, dances like a teenager alone behind closed doors discovering an album for the first time.

‘Royals’ - a song that has reached phenomenal and unprecedented levels of success – is an anthem of throbbing synth-led minimalism and sardonic commentary, while her recent collaboration with Son Lux, ‘Easy (Switch Screens)’, offers a jittering, bold, punchy glimpse into where Lorde’s suburban anthems of youth and naiveté could travel next. As Tavi Gevinson, the editor and founder of the achingly cool teenage port-of-call Rookie rightly points out, “according to many of the writers who have profiled her, she’s the patron saint of Weird Girls Everywhere.” In reality, though, the appeal of Lorde’s brand of sophisticated, clever pop music reaches far beyond the iPods of the black-clad cool kids at the back of classrooms. It’s evidenced by the flurry of snapchatting and selfie-taking activity taking place across Brixton Academy tonight from younger attendees and ‘grown-ups’ alike. Lorde is the artist that everybody wants to see, and share, because she’s one that doesn’t underestimate or patronise the tastes of her audience.

Lorde disappears, and re-emerges, during ‘Teams’ to don a glitzy golden gown, and one suspects that she’s fully aware of the irony in donning that kind of luxe. Lorde might tell her audience tonight that she fears growing up sometimes, but she’s pop’s Peter Pan, and pushes the experimental edge of every song with fearless tenacity. Bold, formidable, haunting, and occasionally, glimpsingly, vulnerable, tonight confirms Lorde is far more than a flag bearer for the misfits; she makes weirdo pop sound effortless.

Tags: Lorde, Reviews, Live Reviews