The screams come in waves as 30,000 people lose their collective minds at the mere sight of Billie Eilish as she rises up on a stage in the centre of the arena. And then again as the screens settle on her face. Before even singing a note she gives that cheeky half-smile that seems to say, ‘Yeah, it’s me. You’re in for a treat.’ Or whatever the American equivalent of that phrase is.
This is Eilish completing her run of six nights at the O2, and is an effortless demonstration of her status as the most exciting pop star on the planet. Scratch that: the best. She’s the best because she stands alone, the ultimate outsider who has somehow beat them all.
A couple of months ago, the Standard watched Nine Inch Nails in this same arena and that show by the dark lords of industrial metal was oddly similar to this one. The same black box stage set-up in the centre of the room, an emphasis on blood-red visuals and avant-garde imagery on the screens, but most of all, musically: Eilish’s angst-pop delivered live is pulsating electro shot through with intense moments of vulnerability, characterised by a compulsion to expose her self-destructive tendencies in a way that would make Trent Reznor proud.
Tonight bury a friend, complete with horror imagery on the screen, bursting fireballs, and Eilish channeling Linda Blair in The Exorcist for her dance moves, is a spectacle of a collective unconscious nightmare come to life; only, the sea of teens are loving every thrilling second.
Among all the female stars making this a golden era for pop, nobody does it quite like Eilish. Without criticising the hyper-sexual imagery of other artists - though you have to say, it can feel a touch cynical at this point in the attention economy - Eilish presents herself in a cooler, edgier manner, reflected in her legions of fans gather around the venue. The look is pure grunge: ripped jeans, baggy shirts, sullen stares. It is a ‘fuck you’ to expectations and it makes Eilish the closest thing we have to a Kurt Cobain today. He too, was anti-fashion, utterly unconcerned with fitting into any ideals of being a Big Music Star.
Eilish’s triumph is to convincingly put across the darkness inside her while at the same time laying down huge songs that are genuinely exhilarating.
THE GREATEST, one of a large number of songs taking from her latest album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, is indicative of this, a pained look at unrequited love that verges into cynical self-disgust, which Eilish delivers from high up on a rising platform, that then shifts have way through into this huge rock song that quakes the room. It’s not simply the expansive intensity of the music, it’s the way she puts herself into the vocal in such a raw way. You believe in Eilish, which is surely the measure of any true star.
The tender, stripped back moments work incredibly well: Eilish sitting on the floor for when the party’s over, a heartbreaker of a song if ever there was one, or her alone at the piano for BLUE and ocean eyes. At one point she takes a moment to talk about the troubles in the world but her show being “a safe space for everybody,” and that feels about right for all the kids here, this is music as a refuge and a star as an idol who speaks directly to them, individually.
Yet this is a huge, exciting, scream-along party at its heart, with bad guy delivering the mayhem and it all hitting a peak with Guess, Charli xcx’s song with Eilish, delivered here as the ultimate messy anthem and extended out into a clubbing climax which has even the aging dads hiking up their sagging jeans for a bit of a boogie.
It all ends with BIRDS OF A FEATHER and that’s it for Eilish’s residency and of all the superstars who have passed through London this year, she has the glint in her eyes of knowing her place among them: way apart, doing her own thing, her songs, her way. Not a bad role model at all, a pop riot grrrl... Kurt would have loved her.
