BALTIMORE GETS HIT HARD AND SOFT
BY ALANA BROCK
On October 4th, American singer and songwriter Billie Eilish hit the stage again in the United States at CFG Bank arena in Baltimore, Maryland, for her world tour of her third studio album “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT”. Although this album was her first to not enter the Billboard 200 at No. 1, she had the best first-week numbers of her career. “Hit Me Hard and Soft” hit almost double the amount of first day streams on the global Spotify chart with an impressive 72.7 million first day streams. Making it the fourth biggest album of 2024. This album follows her previous release of “Happier Than Ever” in 2021. With a long break between these two studio albums, Eillish released various collabs and EPs including “Guitar Songs” in 2022, her single ‘What Was I Made For” from the summer hit Barbie (2023) and her feature in “Guess featuring Billie Eilish” with Charli xcx.
Nat & Alex Wolff, sibling actors and musicians from New York City, came on to the stage around 7:00 to get the energy in the crowd going. Their pop-rock vibe combined with their infectious excitement got the crowd roaring with their hits “Glue”, "Rollin’ Around” and “Lucky You”. The brothers even performed the live debut of “Soft Kissing Hour”, an unreleased single that they partnered with Billie Eilish to produce. The brothers captivated the stands by showing off their impressive skills for playing multiple instruments, as well as their large vocal range, combined with the energy of running around the stage really set up the crowd for a night to remember.
Billie Eilish came on stage at about 8:35 following Nat & Alex Wolff’s thrilling set. She came out in a baseball cap with a skull on it while sporting an oversized sports jersey with the number “72” on it. Screams pierced the ears of concert goers and filled the arena. She immediately started performing “CHIHIRO”, the third installment in “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT”. With the combination of Eilish’s talent and the mesmerizing visuals on the screens and the illuminated box she utilized for various shenanigans throughout the show, the crowd was completely captivated by her performance. She added on to the hype by performing “LUNCH” as well as “NDA” and “Therefore I Am” from the album “Happier Than Ever”.
The opening act was met with praise for Eilish. After a short speech expressing her love for all of her supporters, she performed one of her newests hits “WILDFLOWER”, bringing a melancholy feel to the arena. Her performance was beautiful and did an amazing job expressing the feelings this song invokes. She followed this up with a beautiful rendition of her 2018 hit “when the party’s over” with live layered vocals. She encouraged that audience to be silent while she layered the vocals in front of thousands of fans. It was a truly mesmerizing performance that exposed her talent for live singing, which was my favorite part of her show. Eilish continued to alternate between albums. She played “ilomilo” and a fiery performance of “bad guy” from her 2019 album “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?”. She followed with her new songs “THE DINER”, “THE GREATEST” and a song that showed us her vulnerable side “SKINNY”.
Eilish brought up two of her vocalists who happen to be her childhood friends, Ava and Jane Horner, who joined her on stage for a lovely performance of the acoustic version of “Male Fantasy”. After her hit single “TV”, there was a short interlude of “BITTERSUITE”, a recent song that did not get enough play time during this show. Exhilarating performances of “bury a friend” and “Oxytocin” continued to excite the pit. On the B-Stage, she played a cover of “Guess” by Charli xcx, as well as part of the last song featured on the headlining album “BLUE”. She plays the first part, called “True Blue”, which her brother, Finneas O’Connel, and herself wrote when she was 14. Eilish moved to the main stage after weaving through the barricade, where she got up close and personal with her fans. Once she was back, she performed a combination of “lovely”, “idontwannabeyouanymore”, and her song that truly jump started her career, “ocean eyes”.
PHOTO BY HENRY HWU
After an energetic performance of “L’AMOUR DE MA VIE” with the “over now extended version”, Eilish made her way to a seated position on the edge of the stage, where she began perform a tear jerking rendition of her Academy Award winning song “What Was I Made For” from the motion picture Barbie. During this song, it felt as though Eilish truly had the opportunity to sit and create a deep connection with her fans. This song was a beautiful way for her to begin to wrap up her emotional performances of the evening.
Eilish ended the show with her hit song “Happier Than Ever”, which has over 1.4 billion streams on Spotify, and her fourth and most popular track on the new album “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”, which has a little over 1.1 billion streams on Spotify. As Eilish made her rounds, bowing and waving goodbye to the Baltimore crowd, “BLUE” began playing again, only this time it was the second part known as “Born Blue”. A song that was going to be released in her second album, however, it never made the cut. Billie Eilish and FINNEAS combined the two tracks with melodies from “THE GREATEST” and “SKINNY”, which start this album, meaning “BLUE” would be at the end. Overall, Eilish’s gut wrenching and electrifying performance left the fans in a melancholy air. It’ll be exciting to continue to follow Eilish’s long career as she continues to take over the music world, one song at a time.
PHOTO BY HENRY HWU
