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Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Billie Eilish: A masterclass in introverted pop for extroverted occasions
Billie Eilish makes the kind of music that suits an expensive pair of headphones: introspective, meticulously produced bedroom pop, elegant earworms that benefit from repeat listens rather than offering instant gratification. Not an arena's natural bedfellow, then – the kind of venue the 23-year-old from Los Angeles has been required to play since her 2019 debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? turned her into a star at the age of 17. But on the first night of the UK leg of a lengthy world tour, she furnished her songs with lasers, flames, and a titanic sound system, providing a masterclass in introverted pop for extroverted occasions. Eilish was in Glasgow to promote her third album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, and the tour's staging resembled a tennis court: a rectangular central stage with a live band separated to each side of the court in sunken pits. But it was less Wimbledon, more nightclub. Both the band and the plumes of pyro they were positioned alarmingly close to added necessary oomph, evident on opening trio Chihiro, with its imperceptible electronic build, the supple single Lunch and 2021's NDA, revamped into a thudding power ballad. An illuminated cube sometimes rose and sank in the middle of the stage, Eilish performing from within a dangling inner cage, clipped to a floor tether that made her look a bit like a cartoon prisoner. That image played neatly into the themes of entrapment that colour Eilish's work. Celebrity has come at an obvious price: she wears shapeless clothes to keep her body from media scrutiny, and has taken out restraining orders on stalkers. Like her most obvious predecessor, Lorde, growing up fast has resulted in preternatural maturity, and the young audience treated Eilish like an enduring legend. Early in the set, she received a long ovation as if an actress; incidentally, she's the youngest person to have won two Oscars (for her James Bond and Barbie soundtrack contributions). Poised somewhere between starlet and goth – Hollywood good looks in teen garb – she leapt around the vast stage like an athlete, never once leaving it during the 90-minute show. She worked briskly through her hits, from 2019 breakthrough Bad Guy, with its generational 'duh' to the pulsing coda of L'Amour de Ma Vie. A maelstrom of lasers assisted Oxytocin, while communal fury accompanied TV's line 'while they're overturning Roe v. Wade'. But it was Guess – her 2024 remix of the Charli XCX track – that earned the biggest screams of the night. Those screams often overwhelmed Eilish's own gossamer croon – save for when she requested total silence in order to create live vocal loops on her song When The Party's Over. She sat on the floor and began a Gregorian-like hum: canny proof she was singing live despite the digitised staging. Otherwise, the show mostly worked best when using loud, hi-tech frills to lift up her normally subdued style of pop. Yet closer Birds Of A Feather – an eyelash flutter of a song – needed little more than a mist of confetti: evidence that sometimes you can hit hard by hitting soft.
Irish Times
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Iron Maiden in Dublin: All killer(s) no filler in a near perfect set list that hits the high notes every time
Iron Maiden Malahide Castle, Dublin ***** Iron Maiden 's Run for Your Lives tour begins with a dingy east London backstreet vista projected on to the big screen with boarded up pubs and a sign to Upton Park – erstwhile home of West Ham United. Iron Maiden are 50 years old this year. Not only were many of their fans not born then, many of their parents weren't born either. The band came from nothing in east London and they are still here, doing what they do, undimmed by the passing years. Iron Maiden could do a Metallica and create two separate set lists on separate nights and sell them as two nights. READ MORE These two are the only bands in heavy metal with a back catalogue that good. Instead, Iron Maiden stuck to a greatest hits package – and by greatest hits we mean the greatest of greatest hits, the first XI, the gold standard, the best of the best. The set list was entirely composed of songs from the band's incredible streak which began with the debut album, Iron Maiden, in 1980 and ended in 1992 with Fear of the Dark after which singer Bruce Dickinson left the band for six years. Iron Maiden's new drummer Simon Dawson, who began playing live with the band only last month. Photograph: Dan Dennison Iron Maiden's Janick Gers on stage at Malahide Castle, Dublin. Photograph: Dan Dennison Steve Harris of Iron Maiden performs at Malahide Castle, Dublin. Photograph: Dan Dennison If you polled Iron Maiden fans, you couldn't have produced a better set list give or take the odd quibble here or there. It's all killer(s) and no filler, pun fully intended, as the first three songs, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Wrathchild and Killers are all from the 1980 album Killers. Dickinson needs to donate his vocal cords to science. How he keeps hitting the higher register song after song, tour after tour, is a wonder. He is 66, yet he is no different in style or substance than he was when he was half the age, bounding around the stage. He remains as ever the greatest showman, at once wearing a luchador mask during the ancient Egyptian-themed Rime of the Ancient Mariner and singing the incomparable Hallowed Be Thy Name while locked in a cage. Whoever did these visuals deserves the musical equivalent of an Oscar or whatever baubles they give out for set design During The Trooper, a song about the Crimean war, Dickinson swaps the Union Jack that he waves around like a man leading the charge of the Light Brigade, for an Irish tricolour. Maybe he's trying to be ... what's that word that gets commonly used for this type of gesture? Inclusive? Or perhaps he knows that the first Victoria Cross medals in history were won during the Crimean War and they were both won by Irishmen? Anyway, we digress. Dickinson welcomed the new drummer, Simon Dawson, who began playing live with the band only last month. He replaced the affable long-term drummer Nicko McBrain, who retired at the age of 73 last year. Fans of Iron Maiden enjoy the show at Malahide Castle, Dublin. Photograph: Dan Dennison The real star of the tour is the immersive digital display which accompanies every song. It is, in effect, a seventh member and a suitable backdrop for the band's epic takes on history, myth and literature. [ Alanis Morissette: We thought that whole era of 'size zero' was done. We dropped the ball Opens in new window ] On Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a 13-and-a-half minute epic equal to the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem on which it is based, a full-rigged ship pitches through mountainous seas, freezing waters and sunsets coloured red and blue. It is hard to take your eyes off the big screen as it conveys the majesty and horror of being at sea in a doomed ship. Whoever did these visuals deserves the musical equivalent of an Oscar or whatever baubles they give out for set design. If it is done by AI , we are entering a new realm of concert visuals. This band can't go on forever, but here they are, still rocking against the dying of the light. No AI will ever change that.
Forbes
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Q&A: Empire Of The Sun's Luke Steele On Loss, Grief, Al Green And More
AUSTIN, TEXAS - MAY 14: Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun performs in concert during the "Ask That ... More God" tour at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park on May 14, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by) Australian electronic duo Empire of the Sun just wrapped a hugely successful before now heading overseas. They'll return to the US in October to play Austin City Limits festival. Among the US shows was a sold-out LA date as part of the immersive Cercle Odyssey run, which also included Moby, Jungle and more at dates in LA, Mexico City and Paris. It was after the Cercle Odyssey show in LA that I connected over Zoom with Empire's Luke Steele to catch up on the tour and more. In a profoundly moving conversation, Steele talked about the power of music and the tour. Having lost his father a few months before the tour being with the fans each night took on a much deeper meaning for him. Steve Baltin: We're going to have fun to start with because I just finished interviewing Christian McBride, the jazz great bassist. And later today, I'm interviewing Willie Nelson. And I am sure that I'm the only person in the history of the universe to interview you and Christian McBride and Willie Nelson in the same day. So, if you guys are playing a benefit together and it's the all-star finale, what song do you want to do with Willie and Christian? Luke Steele: Oh, Willie's song, "Something You Get Through" from a record he did a few years ago. It just broke my heart cause I found that song right as the pandemic hit and all these people from the older generation, the '70s and '80s were losing the loved ones, and it was just so heartbreaking. These people had been married for 40 or 50 years and he just released this song, "Something You Get Through." I think I posted it on Empire where I just thought, 'Wow, it's not something you can explain really. It's just really something you get through.' So, that would have to be the song. Willie would have to take the lead on that one. Baltin: I like the way you put it though; it's just something that speaks to you. I was listening to your stuff again last night and I've always loved the song 'Alive.' Having nearly died twice, it takes on different meaning. For you, are there stories you've heard that really resonate with you, or they have similar effects for other people that's 'Something You Get Through' had for you. Steele: Exactly. I came back to that song because my father passed away a couple months ago. We had the funeral and then I'm on this world tour, but my mom was like, 'Your dad was a musician his whole life and even by the end in his eighties, that's two and three shows a week.' And mom said, 'You have to get on the road. That's what he would have wanted.' So, I was sitting in the back of the tour bus. And then that song for me, when I heard in the pandemic, it came back up. It's amazing, music it's like a beautiful friend, like a close friend that stays with you.' Baltin: For you, what are those songs from childhood because I know exactly what you mean. There are songs like "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor is one for me. The songs that have been with you for like 30 years and you don't know why, you don't know what it is about. It hits you when you're a kid and that's your song. Steele: Incredible, yeah. I always loved John Lennon, I remember going through my dad's vinyl collection probably when I was 10 or 12 or something and just not knowing anything about any of the artists, which is kind of a beautiful thing and then always coming back to Lennon, going, "Man, the melodies with this guy." Yeah, Lennon, Carole King, James Taylor, John Prine, all those old great artists. Baltin: I lost my dad two years ago. So, I'm very sorry about your dad. I know it's something that hits you each day and it resonates in a different way. I've talked about this with a lot of artists and grief is not a linear thing at all. It just comes about in very weird ways. So, for you have there been moments when you're on stage and there's just this catharsis from tens of thousands of people out there singing back to you? Steele: I know exactly what you mean. I hear about your dad as well, man. Yeah, there are certain moments and triggers. We do the song 'Ask That God' in the show, on the stage set there's like this big rock and I go and I stand on this rock and it hits the chorus on the visual, this giant hand comes across the stage and always that moment it takes me to the very time when he went to be with the Lord. It's quite incredible, it always takes me to that exact same place of crossing the Rubicon to the next side. Baltin: Does the song change for you or has the meaning changed? Steele: Yeah, that's what is so beautiful, the lyrics just take on a whole different meaning. Yeah, I think for that one because it just felt so heavenly. The songs called 'Ask That God,' don't ask the world, ask the father. I think it'smore powerful now for me. I've been reading this C .S. Lewis book about grief that my agent actually gave me. They said, love is the price of grief, and you get all these different quotes, and stories about it andwhat's been quite amazing is I always wondered about people delivering food to your house. But I realized what that is now like when someone really close to you passes away your food and cooking and everything is such a bizarre thing. With us it was hundreds of dishes and pasta and all this stuff and that's I now see like that in the movies. So, I understand that it's quite an amazing experience to understand that someone bringing a lasagna or something means so much. It's so warming to your heart. Baltin: What was the comfort food during all of this process? Steele: There's onions and bread and all that kind of stuff. It's incredible to see the array of people my father touched, from young musicians to he worked with some disabled people. He worked with the Vietnam veterans. So it was like that film, Big Fish. It's got the circus and this guy, and then at the funeral, they're all there and I just keep thinking about that film because it was like blues players in Houston, Texas to a choir that was put together and people from the street and stuff. He worked with this choir and then he worked with the veterans and all that. So, it was quite amazing to see the different fabrics of life and all the different people's hearts he touched. Baltin: That's got to be so interesting though, to see all the different lives he touched, and then you get to be out there and see all the different people who come to see you and all the different lives you touch. Steele: Especially now on this tour there's a real urge for people to escape the world and to live in that place. I ended up saying that quite a lot on the stage; this is our place, this is where you cry, where you laugh, you dance, you give it up to the Lord. This is the time of letting go. The shows took on a whole elevated meaning for that, cause it's not just music. It's never just music. It's always so many breakthroughs and spiritual overcoming's and things. Baltin: Who first did that for you when you were a kid? I remember seeing the Nick Cave shows after he dealt with loss. And those were transcendent. Steele: I can't think of the one show cause I'm just funny like that. But yeah, the show we're doing, it's taken on a whole other meaning. But everything from The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion to obviously seeing the boss. I remember flying back in from LA actually and had super jet lag and someone was like, "We got three tickets to the boss." And it was one of those, I drank a few wines and ended up just making it as the boss comes on, that was just incredible. BB King, I love BB King. I love that because it was just such classic Southern American showmanship, like this big basket of obviously fake gold watches, but he had necklaces, and he walked down the front and handed them out and it was just so rich, reverent kind of blues. That was like Al Green first time. I wasn't married at the time, but it was in LA doing a remix of Yoko Ono actually. I'm starting over and actually got the original vocals from Double Fantasy and we finished the session and then Al Green was at the Hollywood Bowl and I'd never been to the Bowl and managed to get some tickets and at the time I was carrying a little speaker on my hip, you know, one of those little amps with I was wearing the iPods around 20 years ago. And all the church groups from the South have come up, so there'd be groups of 10 or 15 all walking in, singing 'Let's Stay Together.' But that was another show with real reverence. Like, he'd come down the front, take his jacket off, and he'd go, 'Oh, half the ladies want me to keep it on, half want me to take it off.' That was just such another memorable concert. Baltin: Let's come onto the Cercle show then for a second. How much fun was it to be the one who helped start something off? It's like when you play a festival. I know you guys are doing ACL. It's a good challenge because it's not just your crowd. They're your fans there, but there's also people there to see Olivia Rodrigo. Steele: Yeah, it was pretty incredible, being able to step into something so immersive and so new. We designed our show called the Miracle Room. I built our show based on you're walking through the desert, and you find this giant box and you walk into it and it's like the new church of the future. It's early days all around you on the roof and you fall into this transcendental prayer which goes through a whole cycle of songs and ends with the cleansing and healing and that's what our show was designed about.
The Independent
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Rock band Heart offering reward for instruments stolen from New Jersey venue
Two irreplaceable instruments owned by members of the rock band Heart were stolen from a venue in New Jersey last weekend as the group prepared to launch a nationwide tour, and the musicians are now offering a reward for information leading to their return. The band was set to kick off the An Evening With Heart tour at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City on Saturday, and its gear had been set up there the day prior to the show. Among the items stolen were a custom-built, purple sparkle baritone Telecaster guitar with a hand-painted headstock made for band member Nancy Wilson, and a vintage 1966 Gibson EM-50 mandolin that band member Paul Moak has played for over 25 years. 'These instruments are more than just tools of our trade — they're extensions of our musical souls," Nancy Wilson said in a statement issued by the group. "We're heartbroken, and we're asking for their safe return— no questions asked. Their value to us is immeasurable.' Heart is led by Wilson and her sister, Ann, who have made music together since the '70s and have had hits like 'Magic Man,' 'Crazy on You' and 'Alone.' The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers were honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2023.
The Guardian
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
John Legend review – a somewhat bloodless performance from a wonderful singer
'Get lifted' is Glaswegian slang for being taken into police custody. It seems unlikely, to say the least, that John Legend knew this when choosing Glasgow to open his Get Lifted 20th Anniversary world tour. Still, his appearance is appropriately arresting, strolling on stage in the sort of dazzling white suit that looked so fine on Marvin Gaye and Al Green. 'Can I be sexy tonight?' he asks – the very definition of a rhetorical question – ahead of She Don't Have to Know, a breezy ode to cheating. The tour is a celebration of his classic debut, an album that announced Legend as a soul man who could, it seemed, be spoken of in the same breath as giants of the genre. In his 20s when Get Lifted was released, he's now 46: a middle-aged star playing the songs of a hungry – and horny – young musician; a husband and father singing of infidelity and reconciliation. Perhaps because he no longer feels the words he wrote back then, there's something bloodless about much of the performance. He is a wonderful singer and his nine-piece band skilled, but the set is drilled to the point of being dull. Legend is a former management consultant – as he mentioned during one of the interminable 'my musical journey' talky bits – and one suspects that somewhere backstage is a PowerPoint plotting every priapic strut and yelp. His between-song chat is so cheesy that when he asks us to 'Make some noise for Philadelphia!' it isn't clear whether we are being urged to cheer the city or the spread. His playing is expressive enough; no need for all that commentary. The ballads Ordinary People and All of Me, solo at the piano, are beautiful songs beautifully performed. Take My Hand, Precious Lord shows off his gospel roots. There is even a curveball Beatles cover, I Want You (She's So Heavy), stitched seamlessly to the end of his own I Can Change. Those are highlights, but the show as a whole drags. At two hours we are detained too long and it is a relief to be released. John Legend plays Co-op Live, Manchester, 29 May, then tours the UK until 1 June
