Billie Eilish
Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane, QLD
Tuesday, February 18th
The Australian leg of Billie Eilish’s ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour’ opened to a full house in Brisbane. On the first of four nights in the 12,000-plus seater, the juggernaut picked up where Billie left off in the US just prior to Christmas.
Every fan there would have given thanks to Eilish and her team for this run of arena shows when she could’ve have easily played a single night in a stadium. Some fans had even camped out for this Tuesday night show since Saturday.
The good news was there really wasn’t a bad GA spot in the house. Visually, the staging was a thing of wonder, yet Eilish was still able to make a venue of this size feel as intimate as a club gig.
Her production crew flipped the usual stage layout of the venue on its head. The centre floor area was dominated by a huge rectangular stage that looked like an electric tennis court on steroids. The band was split into two camps and were positioned in on-stage pits.
As the lights dropped, a huge cube appeared over the stage – there she was. That same cube then disappeared and reappeared in a series of eye-catching variants throughout the night. The laser show alone would have made Pink Floyd and Muse green with envy.
Credit: Henry Wu
When Eilish hit the floor wearing her LA cap and oversized Ralph Lauren jersey, the capacity crowd went nuts. (There’s nothing quite like seeing an artist locked into the cultural zeitgeist at the peak of their powers, as Eilish so obviously is.)
“Chihiro”, “Lunch”, and “NDA / Therefore I Am” made for a high octane opening gambit. Eilish turned the mood on its head with a mellower take on “Wildflower” that seen the room morph into a sea of cellphones.
Eilish then asked the crowd to give her forty seconds of complete silence. They unsurprisingly obliged and in front of our eyes Eilish started building loops that eventually led into a haunting “When the Party’s Over”.
The tempo started to build again as Eilish dropped the perfect Brisbane moment: as “Bad Guy” hit, a sample lifted from our very own pedestrian crossing bounced off the walls of the arena.
Changing tempos again, she provided possibly the biggest sing-a-long moment of the night with “The Greatest”. Eilish shouted out Laneway Festival for giving her a touring slot in her early days. She told us “things are really bad in the US right now,” and put her guitar down to deliver a reading of “SKINNY”.
Credit: Henry Wu
There’s a darkness in much of Eilish’s music, but there was an elation in the way the crowd carried her songs on Tuesday night. When she explained that her fans meant the world to her, you could see why.
By the time “Bury a Friend” rolled around, centre stage was delivering fireballs into the heavens. Charlie XCX appeared on the video screens for “Guess”, which was hands down one of the highlights of the night.
Eilish confessed to sinus trouble and jet lag, but you wouldn’t have guessed it. Her energy was off the charts. The show was an overall spectacle, but the undisputed star wasn’t the tech wizardry: it was the touching fan connection and the way Eilish delivered a collection of songs that stand alongside the best written by any of her pop peers within the last five years.
Eilish effortlessly made a cavernous arena feel like a lounge room. If you can find a ticket, this is a tour not to be missed.
Find more information about Billie Eilish’s remaining Australian tour dates here.
