I saw Billie Eilish play in Glasgow – and I have one major question

The National

08-07-2025

Now, I am convinced she is the greatest living pop star.
The change of heart started with a PR email that dropped into my inbox in late June headed: 'COMPLIMENTARY TICKETS TO BILLIE EILI.'
Far be it from me to turn down a good time. Especially if that good time is free tickets to one of the world's biggest popstars (the fifth biggest, according to Spotify's most-streamed ranking).
Having secured tickets by doing precisely nothing, I felt it my duty to dig into her back catalogue. What I was not expecting was the depth, originality, and often sheer beauty of it. I was, very quickly, hooked.
Two weeks on, and I'd made it to the big time. Well, the top 15% of Billie Eilish fans in the world (again, according to Spotify).
A Spotify notification let me know I had become one of Billie Eilish's top 15% fans (Image: NQ) So, safe in the knowledge that I'm a bigger fan than 85% of you, let me tell you about Billie Eilish.
She is a cultural icon, who by stubbornly refusing to conform to expectations of what a female pop star should be, has redefined superstardom. Her song 'Not My Responsibility" is more a polemic against misogyny and celebrity than a musical number: 'Am I my stomach? My hips?/ The body I was born with/ Is it not what you wanted?'
She can float through a ballad wracked with anguish, then pivot in a heartbeat into basslines filthier than Goldie in the '90s.
She did just that – more than once – at her headline show at Glasgow's OVO Hydro on Monday, and it was just as impressive every time.
READ MORE: I went to Lana Del Rey at Hampden. It was NOT worth the money
With the disclaimer that I may be getting some of the song names and formatting wrong, her rendition of 'when the party's over', sung lying on her back, was one of the most tender – and frankly sensual – performances I've ever witnessed.
The instant flip into 'THE DINER' saw her channel the thing that climbs out of the TV in The Ring. The dissonance was jarring, and spectacular.
It is no exaggeration to say that her opening two songs – 'CHIHIRO' and 'LUNCH' – were as good as any live performance I have ever witnessed. And I've seen Radiohead.
But as truly stunning as the show was, there was one big question hanging over it: is anyone in the crowd even watching?
Every major moment was recorded thousands of times from thousands of different angles on thousands of different phones. Scarcely an eye in the stadium was looking at Eilish directly, not through a screen.
Even the heaviest bass drops in the biggest dance numbers – where surely the point is to 'lose yourself in music' – saw the thronging crowds simply stand there, phones in the air.
Some of the people recording, as with Tuesday's second sell-out show, had queued for literal days. The moment they had waited for had arrived, and they were saving it all for later.
Because has something not been lost in giving up the moment in order to film it?
Moments are meant to be fleeting, to be grasped, to be left alone. Moments like Billie Eilish delivered are meant to be experienced.
On Monday, she gave us something raw, strange, beautiful – a performance full of contradictions, power, and vulnerability.
But the tragedy is that so few were truly present for it. Billie Eilish, of all artists, deserves to be seen. And not just in social media clips.
Billie Eilish played Glasgow's Ovo Hydro on July 7, 2025. She will play a second, sold-out show at the same venue on July 8.