Quiet moments work best for Lorde in arena

The Saturday evening congregation at Value City Arena spent a few raucous hours celebrating the risen Lorde.

Not the man in the tomb, but the 21-year-old New Zealand pop phenom who scored her first record deal at 13, her first No. 1 single at 16 and a critically worshipped sophomore album last year, at age 20.

The queen — born Ella Yelich-O’Connor — held court in front of an exuberant audience, if a smaller one than most arena events attract.

Waiting to appear while her team of white-clad choreographers pantomimed a brawl, Lorde hung back until the third verse of the brooding “Sober,” the most introspective party song possible.

“What will do when we’re sober?” she sang.

That ability to live fully in adolescence but review it like an adult sets the singer apart in a world of rager anthems and hedonistic lyrics. It also means that what her shows feature in artfulness — careful dance steps, lovely costumes and a floating box like a subway car — they lack in arena-size entertainment value. She often moves around the stage like your friend who just started hiphop lessons, and her songs worked best in the quiet moments.

After several flailing tracks off her so-so debut, 2013’s “Pure Heroine,” she perched on the box to croon three songs, like lullabies.

Starting with “Writer in the Dark,” off last year’s masterful “Melodrama,” Lorde moved into a gorgeous cover of R&B artist Frank Ocean’s “Solo.”

A simple piano melody — the three-piece band remained smothered in fog for the duration of the show