LordeRDS Simmonscourt, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606<\/p>\n
The set begins with a kind of studied plainness. Lorde<\/a> arrives on the RDS<\/a> stage on Saturday night in a haze of smoke and dramatic, minimalist lighting. She\u2019s in low-slung blue jeans and a black T-shirt, her face dotted with a few gemstones, the kind you buy in a pack from Claire\u2019s. <\/p>\n She sets the tone with Hammer, the first song from Virgin, her most recent album: intimate and a touch menacing, full of brooding romance.<\/p>\n The lights come up, the drum machines drop into Royals, and there\u2019s a collective surge. Everyone in the audience knows every line. The song, her first hit, from 2013, is still as clear and perfectly cut as a diamond.<\/p>\n The videographer knows that close-ups are where Lorde is most magnetic. Her uniquely expressive face can convey both rage and vulnerability, and let emotion build and sharpen and morph.<\/p>\n The visuals are striking: monochrome snippets, jittery angles, live footage captured from a roaming fan-height phone camera. As the show progresses, the video design becomes increasingly elaborate: live footage intercut with preshot fragments, mirrored perspectives and high contrast, blue-soaked camerawork. The montage effect is artsy, a little uneasy and completely mesmerising.<\/p>\n Two dancers join her in bold, expressionistic thrashing movements. During Broken Glass, a song about Lorde\u2019s eating disorder, one of them eats an apple in aggressive, stylised bites projected in close up while the singer unbuckles her belt and tightens it around her waist, holding the strap and howling as if she\u2019s emptying herself of the song.<\/p>\n Later she unzips her jeans entirely and steps out of them, revealing blue boxers. The gesture is tonally perfect: intimate, confrontational and effortlessly sexy.<\/p>\n