Review | The Ultrasound World Tour with Lorde

I went to Rome in college with a friend when I was studying abroad, and it was one of the weirdest trips I have ever been on. I lost him in the Vatican with no cell reception, somehow found a random other group of people I knew in that half a billion square foot museum, then later made friends with a group at a restaurant that took us to a club that opened at 3 a.m. It was memorable for me, but one of the things I’ll remember most from it is how Rome was the backdrop to one of the few times I have truly fallen in love. 

And no, not with my friend, but with a certain album called Melodrama. 

I had always liked Lorde, but this album was so good that I danced to almost the entire thing in the shower of the hostel I was staying upon first listen. When my friend called me to let him inside, I accidentally slipped and almost fell from dancing so much. It was a ridiculous (and kind of embarrassing) start to what has felt like a lifelong relationship with her music. 

A writer known for her left of center pop music and turning a bright, shiny musical landscape to a darker, moodier standstill in the early 2010s, Lorde made it cool to feel and live intuitively through vividly creating that way. 

This has been the case not just for me but many others, and it was never more evident to me than at her sold out show at The Kia Forum this past week. When Lorde first came on to her song “Hammer,” it was the most potent, deafening crowd of screaming I have heard in my life. It topped the One Direction show I saw as a kid; it was louder than Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. This surprised me at the moment, but in hindsight, it made sense. The fans that came to the show were all diehards, and often those who make choices that challenge the norm polarize the general public and have a higher chance of pulling in the people who resonate deeply. 

Highlights from Lorde’s latest record Virgin included “Current Affairs,” “If She Could See Me Now,” and “Clearblue,” where she sang acapella for the first half, playing her voice through a vocoder. Lorde also showed her first album some love by playing “Royals” and “Buzzcut Season.” “Royals” being her breakout hit, had fans cheering in glee as she began, and “Buzzcut Season” saw her singing to a camera in a giant fan. She played “Big Star” and “Oceanic Feeling” from her third record Solar Power, and made sure to include a few songs off of her cult favorite (and mine) Melodrama, with “Perfect Places,” “The Louvre,” “Liability,” and “Green Light,” as well as my personal Lorde favorite “Supercut.” 

I wrote a college paper about the use of this song in the movie Someone Great, and had seen it performed on her Solar Power Tour in London in a tiny venue — but it was a whole different experience seeing her play it to an entire arena. She walked on a treadmill for the beginning part, then started running as the energy of the song picked up during the iconic outro, singing “in my head, I do everything right, when you call I’ll forgive and not fight, because ours are the moments I play in the dark, we were wild and fluorescent come home to my heart.” 

The theme of the show aligned with the mission of her latest record Virgin, as many of the props were connected to moments with one’s body, and a focus on physical need. Whether it was standing in front of the breeze of the fan after a long day in the sun, working out to your favorite song, or pouring water onto your body after you’ve exhausted yourself, she was able to visually articulate the way her album feels, which is completely following your gut without self conscious thought. Every one of these memories she evoked have been moments in my life that I had no choice but to feel that way, and focus on my needs. The lights of this show brought this idea to life as well, with beams at moments looking as though they almost pierced through her as they connected with her mid section from all sides. 

The show closed with a double whammy of crowd pleasers, one being “Ribs,” which saw her leading the night in dance, jumping and screaming along with the crowd. My legs felt like they were going to fall off by the end, a feeling I’d only had one other time at Lorde’s last tour during the same song. 

Lorde teased the other song, saying it would require a lot of trust from the audience, then wrote “GIRL” in Sharpie on her hand, showing it to the camera as it flashed across the screens onstage. The song she was signaling, of course, was “Girl, so confusing,” a feature she has on a song with Charli xcx. Lorde stood on the B-stage opposite the main stage, as Charli made a surprise appearance from the main stage, walking through the crowd alone as she sang, “we talk about making music, but I don’t know if it’s honest…can’t tell if you wanna see me falling over and failing.” Lorde then sang, “I was so lost in my head…I was trapped in a hatred and your life seemed so awesome…it’s just self defense until you’re building a weapon, she believed my projection,” as Charli made it to the B-stage to join Lorde in singing the chorus together: “it’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl.”

We were able to visually see the metaphor of their respective neuroses that individually festered and grew when they were apart, to then see them literally coming together as they worked it out and Lorde sang, “I’m glad I know how you feel, ’cause I ride for you, Charli,” and Charli sang “you know I ride for you too.”

On a one-on-one scale, Lorde was able to turn a bravely vulnerable song into a cultural moment of bonding through overcoming insecurity this past year. But in another sense, it was apparent through this show that she is able to do so on a mass scale with each and every member of the audience and beyond, from her words straight into the hearts and minds of every listener in the crowd. 

And in doing so, Lorde continues to remind the world of the power of a pen.