(Credit: BBC iPlayer – Still)
Mon 17 November 2025 4:00, UK
Ever since she was 16 years old, Lorde has always been the most dominant and inimitable of forces in the alternative pop landscape. On the outside, it would look as though nothing would faze her.
But beneath that veneer, the real Ella Yelich-O’Connor is a far different person; one who, despite her blazing outwards persona as a pop star, has been crippled with stage fright over the years to the point where it almost could have stopped her from performing at all. That may come as a surprise to those who view her as the beacon of 21st century coming-of-age, on the journey between house parties to independent womanhood, but that anxiety is the ultimate reality she faces.
This may add some salience to the question of why the singer takes such protracted breaks between her projects – although she has been blazing through the scene for around 15 years at this point, her latest album Virgin is only her fourth release, with her most recent until then being Solar Power in 2021. Songwriting – and also having the life experiences to build those songs around – obviously takes time, but is it also a case that it takes Lorde such a long period because she is genuinely trying to work up the resolve?
Yet following the release of Virgin in June, and as she is currently on the road with the Ultrasound tour, something seems different. Less inhibited, more candid, visceral, and free. Lorde has finally let go of any preconditions and is truly living her best life, leaving everything out on the stage as she performs. There is no fear anymore, just pure exhilaration. So what has changed?
For starters, the headline news is that Lorde has got rid of her stage fright. That’s a gargantuan feat given the anxieties and battles she has overcome over the years of her career, but it also might seem like a bit of a blasé thing to state. After all, it’s not just as simple as waking up one more and the stress dissipating, or just popping a pill. Or is it?
As it turns out, Lorde has taken the mantra of “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up” from ‘What Was That’ to a new extreme, by undergoing MDMA therapy to cure her fear of the stage.
Of course, it should go without saying that this is all practised in a highly controlled environment, supervised by medical professionals, but it has undoubtedly been the key to getting Lorde back on stage when she felt like she couldn’t go on.
Ahead of the singer kicking off the UK leg of the Ultrasound tour, it’s worth bearing in mind the hurdles she has overcome to get to this point. We may see it as normal for artists to blitz through arenas just like it’s any other day, but it requires a mountain of mental fortitude – and sometimes just a little hit of MDMA. With her show striking a balance between a pop concert and an artistic exhibition, it seems the drug has allowed Lorde to lean into her most deep-seated creative inhibitions and let her mind run free.
As she treks through the crowd in a LED jacket singing ‘David’, it is almost as though she is a symbol for a light in the darkness. The stage may have been Lorde’s demon for so long, but now, in all her brilliant and blazing glory, she is finally showing it who owns the true command.
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