Shows put on by pop stars who are effectively global phenomena will be different in a variety of ways from those put on by metal or hard rock bands—even those who are themselves arguably global phenomena, like Metallica or Evanescence. Such was the assumption I made, driving up to Los Angeles to see Billie Eilish at The Forum on the last night of her Happier Than Ever tour. It was the first pop show I had ever attended, so the assumption was colored almost solely by what I’d witnessed in recorded live performances of pop acts like Michael Jackson or Britney Spears; though I had a ticket for the general admission section, there would be no mosh pit, no crowd-surfing, no sweaty, angry energy, only an ecstatic spectacle produced by a star who had risen quickly in my esteem to become one of my favorite artists of all time. My assumption was both right and wrong for all the best reasons, and that is what made it one of the best shows I have ever attended.
Slayer, Metallica, Behemoth, Mastodon, Opeth, Cannibal Corpse, Jinjer, Evanescence, TOOL, and many others are among the bands I’ve seen in the last five years alone. My record collection features Christina Aguilera, Arcade Fire, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, U2, Led Zeppelin, Portishead, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and artists from nearly every genre of music I’ve found, but I am in essence a metalhead: one whose time listening to music is spent mostly—through a majority no matter how slight—on metal. The live performances I’ve attended have been metal almost exclusively, with a few rock shows, a handful of jazz shows, even a symphonic concert or three if I’m accounting for everything. The best metal shows are transformative experiences for audience members like me.
Guitars amplified to near-deafening volumes, their voices distorted into a crushing, snarling crunch, combine with an often-blistering tempo and a vocalist who’s singing out in triumph or roaring in such a way to demonstrate how inhuman he is to overwhelm me with emotion and satisfaction. I feel the might of their presence, these musicians on stage who have authored the notes dancing in the air that are filling me, lifting me, charging me with awe and creating in me a feeling of being so much larger than I am. If I have any troubles, I am overcoming them in this moment, feeling the spirit of the music’s power instilled in me. The music is angry and aggressive and so, so loud, and every emotion is drowned out except triumphant joy. That is what I mean when I say a good metal show is an act of jubilant transformation.
Here I state the obvious: Billie Eilish is not metal. Her music is classified generally as pop, and by me, personally, as alt-pop. As I drove up to Los Angeles to see my first pop show, what was I expecting? Backup dancers, choreography, and high production value are regular features at pop shows that I’ve seen, but a typical Billie Eilish show features a video backdrop, Billie herself, and two musicians in the background, one of whom being her brother. Billie was already an outstanding pop artist in my mind because the music she wrote stirred surprise and delight in me as I heard it, but, despite numerous interviews I had seen featuring her sass, free spirit, and general down-to-Earth attitude, I was expecting a great show, a great artist, and a great time. Oh, how little I knew!
For as long as I have been attending shows, the opening act is invariably hit-or-miss. Seldom is it the case that the music performed is so offensive that waiting for it to end becomes tedious, but equally rare is the occasion when it is so outstanding that I am moved to search out the artist to see what else they have to offer. Now, Billie was already one of my favorite artists as I drove up to see her, so expecting to see an opening artist whose music I enjoyed in any comparable way would have been the stuff of pure fantasy. It is my good fortune that Dora Jar, the opener that night, was very real. The music she performed had a great dreamlike quality to it, which is a difficult thing to achieve without ultimately becoming little more than an author of ambient sounds. What I heard sounded nothing at all like Billie, and I mean that in the best way possible. Perhaps the most desirable quality of an opening act is not to sound like a diluted version of the headliner. Rarely do I think to myself that I could have heard half a dozen more songs from the opener, but Dora Jar delivered. She was a bubbly performer, her charisma was immediate, her stage presence magnetic and warm. In short, she was the perfect opener for Billie Eilish.
I like to arrive at concerts extremely early, and sometimes that means as early as several hours before the doors to the venue open. Because I’m a metalhead and that’s a subgenre often attracting fewer audience members than pop does, it also means I’m usually first in line and will have no problem at all getting right up front against the barricade. Well, that would prove nearly impossible with this show, but my habit did secure me a position just a few feet away from the barricade surrounding the platform stretching out to the middle of the floor. It is one of my great joys to be up front and face-to-face with the magnificent musicians who have improved my life through their work. I say all this now because I want to impress upon all who read this just how close I was to Dora Jar when she performed the splits or when she strutted out to see all of us on the floor. It was a magical moment, seeing someone I had just then decided was special just six or seven feet away from me. As she exited the stage, however, it was starting to sink in just how close I was going to be to Billie herself, and that thought alone was overwhelming.
Seeing Billie Eilish launched onto the stage from somewhere underneath was surreal. Rumbling music introduced her, then she shot into the air and landed as the crowd erupted and my jaw dropped. Her smile was simultaneously bright and confident and shy, and she walked slowly, carefully, a few steps before “bury a friend” began. She sang and danced and talked, and we all were transfixed and grateful for the next twenty-odd songs. She has as of this writing released just two studio albums, an EP, and a handful of singles. With her longest songs being only around five minutes, I suspect most of us in that crowd were under the impression that we were going to hear nearly her entire catalog. One song in particular, “my future,” was released as a standalone single before it was placed on her most recent album. It has become one of my favorite songs of all time, and it is also one of the few she didn’t play. What amazes me is that I cannot say with any confidence at all that her playing it would have enhanced my experience. The show was just that good.
As I implied above in my description of what happens to me at a good metal show, the live experience of music that I love, music that has the power to change my personal direction, music so good that I would prefer listening to it for the hundredth time rather than continuing my own artistic endeavors, is profound for me in ways I could probably take a whole book to describe. That I so loved the music she played that night was one reason her performance affected me the way it did, yes, but watching her perform did something for me no other show has ever done: it rooted me in that moment. Every other show I have attended got me to enjoy the moment, got me arguably to transcend the moment, but lifted me up and transported me to an experience and an understanding of life and music that allows joy to reveal itself. Billie’s performance, by contrast, invited me to be radically present and revealed to me that same joy was accessible not only through an elevated experience where life and music found and complemented each other, but right there, where I stood and watched and wept, enraptured by the notes fluttering through the air, charmed by her movements and between-song words, self-conscious and somehow unconcerned, willing to be vulnerable and feeling encouraged by this superstar who is herself uncomfortable admitting she is one and yet struts around like one because that is the way we make her feel. “Extraordinary” is the only appropriate word to describe it.
The best music is that which brings out the best in its listener. Given that the purpose of music is to stir up the listener in some way, the best music is, I think, inspiring at the same time it is overwhelming. Too easily those words could be construed to mean that the best music is anthemic or should be directing the listener toward some brand of activism, but what I mean instead is that the best music brings to the front of the listener’s mind intense emotion, and engaging with that, wrestling with it makes the listener better for having done it. The best music makes its listener more fully human. Bearing witness to Billie Eilish live revealed to me an understanding of what it means to be human and experience live music I had not yet imagined. That is why she is now cemented as one of my favorite artists of all time, and that is why that night, that performance, was outstanding.
With care,
~ Grigori