Lorde rules Garden with austere show
Lorde’s age doesn’t make her exceptional. Yes, it seems nuts a 21-year-old with only two albums can headline TD Garden, which Lorde did Tuesday night. But Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Miley Cyrus all filled arenas at the same age.
But everything else about Lorde makes her exceptional.
The New Zealander born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor has become a major cultural and artistic force by rejecting the Disney pop princess template others have used to sell millions of albums. Instead, Lorde conquered the pop world with an anti-pop aesthetic — she minted her debut platinum single, “Royals,” by taking on capitalism over a cold, skeletal hip-hop groove.
Her TD Garden stop reinforced her austere aesthetic: stark set, six dancers in muted colors drifting on and off stage, songs with minimalist beats and unadorned hooks.
Lorde and her dancers opened with “Sober.” With lyrics that play risk against regret and with her typical spare instrumentation, the song established the tone of the night. There would be dancing, joy and catharsis, but it would come with reflection and plenty of downtempo moments.
With no reliance on the ubiquitous video scenes and constant laser blasts of other arena tours, the show put tremendous weight on Lorde’s charisma and catalog. Anyone who saw her 2014 Boston Calling set — where the then17-year-old overcame a lightning storm to become the hit of the festival — knows her intensity and charm can thrill 10,000. But her catalog is more impressive.
Since breaking big with “Royals” in 2013, Lorde has slipped more Top 40 tropes into her songs. (Thanks, if you like the evolution, to producer/songwriter Jack Antonoff’s input on her new album, “Melodrama.”) But she sure isn’t Bruno Mars. Often her songs captivate with only a booming pulse, tight hook and sharp, impassioned lyrics. The examples from Tuesday night include “Homemade Dynamite,” “Tennis Court,” “Hard Feelings” and “Sober II (Melodrama).”
Between her strange, awesome dance party — part gawky teen boogieing alone in his or her bedroom, part ’70s Berlin discotheque — she stuffed a 20-minute chunk of ballads. Removing the dancers and drums, Lorde and piano kept the crowd singing along to “Writer in the Dark,” “Liability” and Frank Ocean cover “Solo.” The energy didn’t dip.
From stage to set list, the night had almost nothing in common with the standard pop spectacle. That’s what made it so striking.