Billie Eilish Hits ‘Em Hard & Bright In Hometown Return & L.A. Audiences Are Happier Than Ever – Review

A current conceit for some pop concerts, if you will, be they Madonna, Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, entails the performer flashing their hits across a spectacle of costume changes and jazzed-up set pieces.

Billie Eilish, on the other hand, doesn’t need such tricks. In fact, the singer only has one getup throughout her Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour, which is closing out its North American leg at the Kia Forum in her L.A. hometown this week. Her performance wattage is what’s bedazzling in how she can take the singles from her recent chill, self-reflective album Hit Me Hard and Soft and turn them up onstage to 11 (in Spinal Tap volume speak), whether it’s bass or belting.

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Witness her first tune of the evening, “Chihiro,” an ode to the character in Spirited Away. Not exactly a dance-party number from the album, but Eilish mushrooms the ditty out of the gate, directing her fans to join in, which they do, screaming the lyrics to the heavens of the Forum. The fan participation was one of several moments on opening night, similar to, and more caffeinated than, the rousing crowd chorus that Harry Styles stirred up back here in November 2022.

Even more impressive is how Eilish at age 23 counts some 66 songs over her near decade-long career, about 40% of them performed on Sunday’s opening night.

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Ellish previously performed at the Forum for December 2022’s Happier Than Ever Tour with brother Finneas in tow. At the time, she settled her stage at the end of the auditorium below a large screen that played myriad modern and sociopolitical images melting into childhood home videos (the latter of which inspired Greta Gerwig for the “What Was I Made For?” montage in Barbie). For Hard and Soft, Eilish took up the center of the Forum similar to Styles two years ago, but oh, so much flasher with a digital performance floor, a digitized box that she arises in — a prop that’s a near relative to the box she used for her “Bad Guy” SNL performance five years ago — and various screens.

In total, the Hit Me Hard and Soft show is an explosion of pulsating and riveting laser light. Clad in fishnet stockings, knee socks, an Oakland A’s cap (who knew she wasn’t an L.A. Dodgers fan?) and a No. 25 New Orleans Saints Reggie Bush jersey, Eilish uses the stage as her own personal gym, running around like its a high school track during performances such as “Lunch.” In one moment, she’s crooning while lying on the stage; in another, she’s dodging pyrotechnics (God bless the band whose backs are right to the fire). “Lunch” might be a moderate toe-tapping song about cunnilingus on her latest album, but Eilish morphs it into a showstopper in-person. Check it out below:

For an artist who has a history of cranking out albums in a cluttered bedroom with her brother, Eilish knows how to transfix a crowd. After performing the first four songs of the show, soonafter her hit “Therefore I Am,” she simply stops and gazes at the audience with a fixed look for an undefined number of minutes. They lose all senses and roar, and she keeps ’em going by teasing them with a plump lip smile and a pull of her hair. It’s reminiscent of how Lady Gaga would stir up her audiences at the onset of Monster Ball. Gaga would get ’em all going by stepping out atop a steel girder, in syncopated Herculean positions while dressed in a masked S&M costume.

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In regards to which numbers are standouts in Hit Me Hard and Soft, alas that’s an embarrassment of riches. Is it the moment when she tells the audience to be quiet while she samples her Catholic choral humming for “When the Party’s Over”? Or it when the whole arena goes into a flash of red for “Bad Guy”? By the way, that signature song isn’t even Eilish’s outro or encore, rather arguably reps the end of Act 1. Or is it when Finneas, who hasn’t been a part of this tour, makes a special appearance, embracing his sister and crooning their Oscar-winning Barbie single “What Was I Made For?”, “Happier Than Ever” and “Birds of a Feather”? Take your pick. But Eilish dangling her feet over the stage, singing her Barbie ditty to a near 4 minutes in length with audiences softly (this time) backing her up was an undeniable emotional highpoint of the show in a bask of pink.

Deadline ran into Finneas at the Babygirl afterparty last week. At the time, he told us he was going to sit on the sidelines and watch baby sis. Hardly. It wouldn’t have been a homecoming show without him. Finneas wasn’t completely absent from the Hard and Soft Tour as he made cameos at the Madison Square Garden NYC and Newark, NJ, stops. Finneas and Eilish’s penultimate song, complete with confetti, was their breezy “Birds of the Feather,” which is up for Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the Grammys.

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Eilish’s return to the Kia Forum was quite the packed affair, a considerably larger draw than the night we last saw her in December 2022 on the Happier Than Ever Tour. The bartender at the Forum Club completely agreed, noting how the masses were on par to the final day of Styles’ Love on Tour residency two years ago.

“I think she’s just gotten bigger,” the bartender said about the swelling of the crowd.

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Fox11 News even reported that fans camped out in tents a week in advance outside the Forum. Anyone weathering those accommodations will be happier than ever they did after reveling in Eilish.

Eilish’s performance on Sunday repped the first of five dates at the Kia Forum. Her next two playdates are Friday and Saturday.

Here is the set list from Sunday:

Intro
Chihiro
Lunch
NDA & Therefore I Am
Wildflower
When the Party’s Over
The Diner
Ilomilo
Bad Guy
The Greatest
Your Power
Skinny
TV
Bittersuite Transition
Bury a Friend
Oxytocin
Guess
Everything I Wanted
Blue & Lovely & Ocean Eyes
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
L’Amour & Over Now
What Was I Made For?
Happier Than Ever
Birds of a Feather
Blue Outro

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