Review | The Radical Optimism Tour with Dua Lipa

When I was in high school, I was a part of an arts curriculum with a “Pop Vocals” singing course. We all had to pick a song to perform for the class, and I, an avid fan of a fairly new pop star at the time, performed the song “IDGAF.” I remember afterwards, a girl came up to me and said, “I’ve never heard that song; it was so good I’ll have to check it out.”

From there, I started hearing that artist more and more. “Blow Your Mind,” played regularly on the radio, and by the summer, a music video came out while I was at a nanoscience camp. I remember seeing it, and immediately telling my best friend I thought the artist was going to blow up. She was this gorgeous girl, with this deep, resonant singing voice that stood out from anyone on the radio at the time (a great example is her cover of the Etta James classic “I Would Rather Go Blind,” that I’d play in the evenings when I got home from school). The music video was for “New Rules,” and the singer was Dua Lipa, who is now one of the biggest stars on the planet. After the release of the Grammy winning Future Nostalgia in 2020, and an almost more famous dancing video, Lipa has been inescapable.

It’s been a joy seeing how Lipa has progressed over the years from online spaces, and I was excited for the chance to see how her performance has grown this past week at The Kia Forum.

The show began with dark-blue water-light images washing across the entire audience as the band walked onstage. There was a giant curved screen onstage along with the one against the wall, where images of water showed gigantic waves that then parted to show Lipa walking out.

She started the set with “Training Season,” complete with a slew of backup dancers as she rallied the crowd’s energy up. Lipa then played the hits “Break My Heart,” “One Kiss,” and “Levitating,” the latter being a standout complete with sparkly getups and a new remix of the song with more energy fused into it somehow. “If you wanna run away with me, I know a galaxy / And I can take you for a ride / I had a premonition that we fell into a rhythm / Where the music don’t stop for life,” she sang. It was the perfect intro to an insanely catchy and danceable tune.

Lipa then had the band set up on the smaller stage in the center of the venue, and played “These Walls,” and “Maria.” She said “These Walls” was her favorite on the new record, and you could feel it; she sang it with a thoughtful focus, and you could hear the emotion in her voice. Lipa then shared that, during this tour, she wanted to play a song she loved by a band from each city for their respective night, and for this show, she wanted to play “California Dreamin’.” The crowd cheered and sang loudly along, and Lipa’s rich voice was a treat to hear in a smaller band setting, as she stood alone with the microphone.

Lipa then exited the stage, and the dancers led the audience in an exercise warm-up to her song “Physical.” When she returned, costume change completed, she led the audience in a dance along to the song, then continued with increasingly complex choreography for “Electricity,” “Hallucinate,” and “Illusion.”

One of the sweetest moments of the show was when Lipa interacted with a few fans in the front row, taking pictures and speaking with them. A few mentioned how they’d been fans since the start of her career, and she beamed, giving them very genuine thanks. I had never really seen that side of Lipa, and it humanized her in a way that balanced out the theatrics and dancers.

Lipa closed the show with heavy hitters: “Be The One,” “New Rules,” “Dance The Night,” and “Don’t Start Now.” To end, Lipa played “Houdini,” singing, “I’m not here for long / Catch me or I go Houdini,” disappearing as the lights shut off. Closing a truly spectacular show with Lipa hitting every move perfectly, it was a clever line to end a show that truly did feel magical and illusory.

Seeing how Lipa has grown since her first record felt like a testament to how hard work and an authentic love and appreciation for fans can elevate a singer from pop sensation to superstar. Lipa’s levitating, pun intended.