BURSTWoodsies
Lorde resembled Patti Smith as she introduced her entire new album, but the lack of well-known hits let the energy drop
It would be misleading to call Lorde’s performance at Glastonbury a “secret set”. Though listed on the schedule only as the mysterious “TBA”, playing the Woodsie stage for an hour shortly after the festival’s kick-off on Friday morning, the anonymous artist’s identity was seemingly widely known weeks before.
Ella Yelich-O’Connor herself had not been exactly subtle, meaningfully flashing her eyes at Radio 1’s Greg James when he pointed out that the release of her fourth album, Virgin, coincided with Glastonbury’s first day. On Thursday, ahead of Virgin’s release, she provided confirmation by posting an aerial photo of the Woodsies tent on Instagram.
It’s a bold move, to debut a new album to a crowd who won’t yet have had a chance to listen to it, let alone form any impressions – but Lorde has that kind of clout. Since her precocious debut, Pure Heroine, she has enjoyed a devout fanbase, many of whom look on her as a big sister figure: worldly and warm, but only intermittently available. With 2017’s critically acclaimed Melodrama, too, she secured her status as a pop star who is only more attention-grabbing for having only sporadic releases.
With Virgin – it’s been made clear, from the three singles and pre-album press – Yelich O’Connor is taking a different tack to music, attempting something looser, more immediate and more off-the-cuff. She debuted first single What Was That with a guerilla performance in New York City’s Washington Square Park, and has since played a series of small pop-up gigs to only the most connected fans. Second single Man of the Year and opening track Hammer both have a suggestive, half-finished yet considered quality, as though Lorde was gently attempting to warn fans: she is not the same star that they remember.
Arriving on stage to strobe lighting and a huge cheer, Lorde is dressed simply in a white baby tee and cargo pants, resembling, with her shock of dark hair, Patti Smith – and also her younger self. For Solar Power – her uncharacteristically sunny third album, which received faltering reviews – Lorde experimented with bleach-blond hair and variously sexy and/or smooth brain’d personae. Today, accompanied by a low-profile band, she appears minimalistic, uncomplicated, direct: recognisable as the teenager who burst out of nowhere with a sharp-eyed satire of celebrity excess, known for her big hair and idiosyncratic dance moves. And the crowd is glad to be reunited.
But when it becomes clear Lorde is playing the new album in full, with a seamless transition from What Was That into a new song, Shape Shifter, the crowd’s energy visibly begins to flag. Yelich-O’Connor has always been a fully fledged performer; here, she kneels on the stage, hoiks up her T-shirt to caress her stomach, and plays to the camera with her face, smizing and snarling to impress upon us the personal nature of the lyrics. Like many songs on the album, Shape Shifter deals with Lorde’s desire not to be pinned on to any one evolution or identity, and reflects on those she’s lived so far: the siren, the saint. “I’ve been up on the pedestal, but tonight I just wanna fall.”