Lorde has hailed her current world tour as being “completely transformative.”
Speaking to Variety, the New Zealand pop superstar opened up about the challenges and successes of her ‘Ultrasound’ tour, revealing her decision to show as much as possible to crowds at shows.
Instead of disappearing backstage for costume changes, for example, Lorde strips down from jeans to simple clothing in full view of the crowd. “I liked the idea of the audience getting to see that change, because it’s a very simple change,” she said. “A belt comes off, jeans come off, a T-shirt comes off. And it becomes this different thing.”
Central to the tour’s impact is Lorde’s decision to showcase the technical elements typically hidden from view. A camera crew captures unflattering angles and reveals the stage’s “guts and wires,” creating what she describes as “raw, intense intimacy.”
The most striking moment arguably occurs during “Man of the Year”, when Lorde tapes her chest on stage, recreating the imagery from the track’s music video. “From before there was even an album, I knew that would be a really important thing to see live,” she told Variety.
“It just felt like an image I had never seen, and it felt incredibly vulnerable and powerful to me. I feel kind of like a rockstar, like, wow, there’s something really special about this.
When we started doing it on the tour I realised, ‘Whoa, this is actually incredibly vulnerable.’ And through the course of the song, I become powerful. It empowers me. But it’s quite amazing how it works on me as a device. I feel so bare in front of these people, and there is this sort of intake of breath in the room because it is just such a raw image. And that feels like exactly the work that I need to be doing. That’s why I’m playing an arena, is to give you this image.”
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Lorde’s tour moves to Europe in November. The tour will hit New Zealand and Australia in February of next year, with new shows recently added to meet demand. These will mark her first performances in the region since her Solar Power tour in 2023.
Lorde is touring in support of Virgin, her fourth studio album, which debuted at No. 1 in her home country.
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In other Lorde news, she recently worked it out on the remix with Charli XCX live, with the pair coming together for a surprise performance of their collaborative version of Charli XCX’s “Girl, So Confusing”. Watch above.
At Lorde’s tour stop at Kia Forum in Los Angeles on Saturday, she invited Charli XCX out during the encore.
