![\"Lorde](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_4426-rotated.jpeg\"\/ "\\"Lorde")
Lorde\u2019s artistry and portrayal of primal emotions coalesced at her Greek Theatre concert. (Photo: CHRIS PROCACCINO\/The Stanford Daily)<\/p>\nEditor\u2019s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.<\/p>\n
Lorde wanted her Ultrasound World Tour to be risky, even potentially controversial. In an intimate moment between songs, she told fans the tour was in honor of \u201cliving on the edge.\u201d Her performance at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Sunday was exactly that. Carefully curated to enhance this vision, each of her songs were cohesive, moving and deeply introspective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lorde\u2019s artistry and portrayal of primal emotions coalesced at her Greek Theatre concert. (Photo: CHRIS PROCACCINO\/The Stanford Daily)<\/p>\n
The singer embarked on the Ultrasound World Tour in September in support of her latest studio album, \u201cVirgin.\u201d The album was released on June 27 to mostly positive reviews from fans and music critics, who commended Lorde\u2019s songwriting. Prior to the album\u2019s release, she shared it was her attempt to \u201cmake a document\u201d of her femininity: \u201craw, primal, innocent, elegant, openhearted, spiritual, masc.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
These themes were palpable at every moment of the concert. Costume changes were minimal but provocative and well-executed. Lorde performed in a duct-tape binder during \u201cMan of the Year,\u201d a song that explores the masculine side of her gender identity. And for \u201cCurrent Affairs,\u201d the singer kicked off her jeans and stripped to her Calvin Klein underwear, sparking deafening cheers from the audience. As she removed clothing, she revealed her body was partially painted in chrome, her knees and shoulders silver-kissed, her fingernails messily coated in polish.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This 22nd night of her tour was special \u2014 of course for the audience, but for Lorde as well. She remarked that the concert was a full circle moment for her. Prior to a piano-laden performance of \u201cLiability,\u201d she reminisced on her inaugural concert tour. \u201cI have a very vivid memory of performing here for the first time,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we were booking this tour, I had literally one request. I said, \u2018Could we play the Greek?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, she returned to the same venue, despite it being significantly smaller than the other ones she booked for this tour. And now, she has a wildly successful career to look back on, with four top-five albums in the U.S. since her debut. Lorde told the audience, \u201cThe older I get, I think it\u2019s really important to come full circle with certain moments of life, to revisit something that happened 10 or 12 years ago and feel what is the same and what is different.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the spirit of reflecting on her career, the night was filled with some of her greatest hits. A minimalistic performance of \u201cRoyals\u201d was reminiscent of her days as a burgeoning teenage artist, and the crowd went wild for an energetic rendition of \u201cGreen Light.\u201d Cryptic lines of code on the screen accompanied the singer\u2019s emotional vocals on \u201cWhat Was That,\u201d the lead single from \u201cVirgin.\u201d And she took to a treadmill to perform a heartfelt rendition of \u201cSupercut,\u201d reminiscing on a lost love.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Lorde](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_4390-rotated.jpeg\"\/ "\\"Lorde")
Lorde\u2019s emotionally charged performance made use of props such as a working treadmill on stage. (Photo: CHRIS PROCACCINO\/The Stanford Daily)<\/p>\n
The deeper cuts from \u201cVirgin\u201d were just as impactful. She performed every track on the record, including an a capella performance of \u201cClearblue\u201d augmented by a vocoder and electrifying renditions of \u201cBroken Glass\u201d and \u201cFavorite Daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she wasn\u2019t immune to concert kerfuffles \u2014 occasional musical pauses and crowd control issues plagued the evening. Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity was her selections from \u201cSolar Power,\u201d the singer\u2019s third album which she released in 2021 to a polarized response. She played two undeniable gut punches: \u201cOceanic Feeling\u201d and \u201cBig Star.\u201d Although her picks were moving, they felt like a lull sandwiched between more electric performances from her dance-pop efforts on \u201cMelodrama\u201d and \u201cVirgin.\u201d She acknowledged on stage that these were risky choices, but they still managed to feel disjointed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the end of the concert, the performance picked up once again. Lorde donned a luminescent jacket and walked slowly among the stands, literally emitting a ball of light as she sang \u201cDavid.\u201d To close the show, she asked everybody to hold hands as she belted \u201cRibs\u201d from the center of the audience. The song hit just as hard as it did 12 years ago.<\/p>\n
The night was simultaneously a stunning recognition of personal success and a moment of rebirth. For an artist who has been incredibly successful in the industry for 13 years, the performance felt like a daring breath of fresh air for her and everyone in the audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques. Lorde wanted her Ultrasound…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[31668,434,83039,18,117,83040,27013,19,17,30528,83042,83041,1142,83043,8505,83044],"class_list":{"0":"post-140214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-berkeley","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-concert-review","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-greek-theatre","14":"tag-green-light","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-lorde","18":"tag-lorde-ultrasound-world-tour","19":"tag-lorde-virgin","20":"tag-review","21":"tag-ribs","22":"tag-royals","23":"tag-supercut"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115422789219629485","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}