LORDE at the Danforth Music Hall, Sunday, October 6. Rating: NNNN
Being a 16-year-old New Zealander with the number 1 song in the United States makes the singer Lorde extraordinary. And it was extra-remarkable to see her in a semi-intimate venue on her first Canadian date ever. Bigger venues await.
It was refreshing to hear the crowd’s legitimate squeals for a teenage girl who sings in a mature way about the realities of her youth. Here’s a performer who doesn’t want to grow up too fast, whose lyrics are intelligent and mature, while still sounding teenage. “Pretty soon I’ll be getting on my first plane,” she sang during Tennis Court, a line which generated particularly piercing screams. “I’ll see the veins of my city like they do in space.”
Immersed in darkness for the one-hour set’s entirety (save for three sparingly used round spotlights behind her), dressed in black with her massive mane of dark curls falling around her, she moved to her music like an inspired sorcerer. She stays hunched low, ever sweeping that hair behind her, and spikes up like an ECG line every time her music does. She even has a signature monster move: elbows tucked, she claws with both hands at the air and makes a growling face.
Lorde mostly performed to backing tracks and was flanked by two band members, also in black, standing in the shadows. It would have been nice to hear some of the beautiful harmonies on her record, Pure Heroine, live, though the sold-out Danforth crowd did its part to pitch in. At times, near the show’s beginning, Lorde’s deep, dry vocals got a little lost in the mix. But that sorted itself out, and by the time she performed Buzzcut Season, her voice – more interesting than it is outright jaw-dropping – was particularly beautiful, breathy and resounding.
Robes inspired an enthusiastic clap-along and she channelled the frenetic intensity of Yeezus perfectly on a cover of Kanye’s Hold My Liquor. None of that could top her number-one tune, Royals, though – the one that calls out pop music’s superficialities. The strobe lights kicked into full gear for the first time, and as her black silhouette leaned into the beams of light, she really did seem like the Queen Bee.
