Lorde’s secret gig
Lorde last night hit the stage for her first full gig in more than two years — with tickets to the exclusive, and well-priced show, selling out in under a minute.
The Kiwi chart-topper and Grammy Award-winner sent her US-based fans into a frenzy when she announced on social media she would perform at Pappy & Harriet’s, a honky-tonk bar and restaurant in Pioneertown, southern California.
The venue has a capacity of just 300 — a world away from the Coachella music festival where she is to perform on Monday (NZ Time).
The festival draws 90,000 music fans a day.
But Pappy & Harriet’s is a popular trendy haunt — it has hosted the Arctic Monkeys and Rufus Wainwright, and last year music great and former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney played there.
Lorde announced her own show just six hours before taking to the stage, posting: “$20 tickets because i’m 20 and because i love you. let’s get raucous before coachella on Sunday night AHH.”
Lorde — who would play music off her upcoming second album both at last night’s gig and Coachella — later posted that the tickets had been a quick-fire hit.
After announcing the gig was a sell-out, she added: “Promoter just said under a minute hahahaha i’m dying i love you.”
It is not the first time Lorde has delighted fans with a surprise appearance.
The Green Light singer took the stage with producer Jack Antonoff in New York last late year to raise awareness and money for vulnerable LBGTQ youth, despite not being on the official lineup.
Lorde also delighted audiences when she performed at the last Coachella as a guest of Disclosure for one song.
In 2015, Lorde racked up the air miles to make a surprise appearance at her best bud Taylor Swift’s concert in 2015, to perform her hit Royals.