Billie Eilish and Earthgang – Manchester Academy 1(27/2/19)

With Billie Eilish herself only turning seventeen in December, I was not sure who I was expecting to see in the crowd for this sold-out Manchester show. We arrived early expecting big things as Earthgang had been announced as support, and found a pretty substantial queue on arrival. It was predominantly young girls lining up, apart from the occasional boy who mistakenly thought he was in the queue for Octavian, who was playing next door. We should have taken this demographic as a warning sign as it created a crowd who, more than any show I’ve been to before, completely overshadowed and distracted from the night.

In a busy crowd some invasion of your personal space is to be expected, but this is far harder to ignore when you are being forced into young girls that are barely at secondary school. Made up of about 70% girls aged roughly 11-16, 20% their shocked or supportive parents and 10% ‘other’, including me, I found myself in a room where I didn’t just feel out of place, I felt uncomfortable. Discomfort also stemmed from the disparity between extremely excited kids and many of their parents, some of whom seemed to be regretting the trip. No more clearly was this on display than when Earthgang belted out a performance of ‘The F Bomb’ from their first album, which led one parent standing in front of us to send a text home saying ‘The support are literally chanting I don’t give a fuck. No joke,’ shortly followed by another text just saying ‘Ridiculous’- his phone was directly in my eyeline. There was a really awkward mixture of dads with crossed arms, mums with handbags, and kids iPhone Xs recording the entire performance on Snapchat.

The crowd, for all their faults, were very enthusiastic at this point, gleefully chanting back to every request the Atlanta duo made who, while their performance was full of energy, were definitely a let-down. My expectations were high and they failed to meet them. They didn’t seem to tailor their set at all to cater to a crowd that I can only assume would have been  of a similar profile throughout the tour, and so kept at tactics like asking ‘where the weed smokers at??’ and playing ‘Fuck Donald Trump’ to a room full of very young, white, Manchester teenagers, which only made me laugh. I’m not sure if they were having sound issues or if their live performance just isn’t very good, as they seemed to be fighting against the beat, which was either too quiet or too loud. This resulted in each song appearing almost completely indistinguishable from the last as they struggled to shout over anything that came from the speakers. They left the stage seemingly without playing ‘Meditate’ or ‘Stuck’ but, as each song was indecipherable from the last, maybe I just didn’t notice them.

There was very much a feeling that, for a large part of the crowd, this was probably their first gig, and so they were clearly excited. They didn’t really seem to know how events work because as soon as Earthgang had departed there were chants of ‘Billie! Billie! Billie!’ despite the announced half an hour gap between the acts. I wanted to leave as the eager youngsters burst into a crowd wide spontaneous performance of ‘Mr. Brightside’… I shit you not. I realise I sound like a grandpa, but that is how this night made me feel. A whole room of teenagers screaming out each verse as they waited for their idol to take the stage. This was even more bizarrely followed by ‘I Want It That Way,’ which I thought would be a little bit before their time, but apparently not. Rather than a DJ in the intervening period, for some reason they just played J.Cole’s KOD on shuffle, so who knows what was going on there? I don’t know if that means she’s a fan of his, or he’s gonna be on the new album, but it didn’t mean he was a surprise special guest.

The stage set up had been nicely thought out and looked dark and slick.  She had both members of her band, including brother Finneas, under what at first looked like light tunnels but actually made up the legs of a spider, the head of which was formed by two disco balls on a platform. It looked better than it sounds (see photo). Billie arrived emerging from this head, of course to a rapturous response, and instantly burst into ‘My Boy’ which we could barely hear over the noise of the crowd, but was a lively and bassy opener. She is known for her wild and outlandish fashion, but she seemed to be toning it down that day with a T-shirt of her new album cover, some oversized black trousers and a huge spiked collar. She took a moment to announce that she had a really bad leg injury which has plagued her career and so would be trying not to dance too much because it could cause real damage - a fact she later ignored as she announced that she was just ‘gonna fucking jump.’

Her set was carefully curated with some surprising and entertaining interludes to bring songs together. These included, strangely, a dance remix of the Wii music when you are designing your Mii to connect my two favourite songs of hers; ‘Party Favour’ and ‘Bitches Broken Hearted’, both of which were distinctly different in terms of energy. ‘Party Favour’ saw Billie take to the ukulele and go solo which felt nice and personal, something she would try to recreate later in the night when she asked the crowd to take a step back and try to be in the moment and enjoy the personal connection as she started ‘Ocean Eyes’. Unfortunately, this only spawned even more phones and Snapchats appearing. It even prompted one girl to Facetime her friend so we were all treated to a very excited Rhys smiling at the stage, blocking everyone else’s view, much to his delight.  ‘Bitches Broken Hearted’, on the other hand, was a lot more synthy and engrossing; although dark it was passionate and drew you into her performance.

One slightly strange moment came in her performance of ‘Hostage’. For those who are not familiar with the track it is a twisted love song about obsession in relationships taking over and creating darkness and anger. The strangeness came from the fact that Finneas here came out from his tunnel to come and duet with Billie, standing really close to one another like a traditional love song format. Though this is a testament maybe to their closeness as siblings, the reading of sexual chemistry between the two is pretty disturbing. While the song lends itself to twisted love, I would still recommend that she avoids any implications of incestuous themes in her performance.  

Billie showed she could really mix it up, from hype to slow, presenting her catalogue as more varied than I had realised when listening alone. Her most exciting moments came in performing ‘Bury a Friend’, which but has definitely grown on me, and prompted the opening of mosh pits by kids who didn’t really know what to do. She closed with ‘COPYCAT’ which was an unexpected choice but did send everyone home excited and worked really well live. Considering she has an album set to be released in the very near future, it was surprising that there were no new unreleased tracks, but that is forgivable as it meant the crowd could get behind every song passionately.

It is difficult to make a balanced judgment of her performance as so much of what detracted from it was not her fault. Her singing throughout the gig - when we could hear it above the noise of the crowd - was perfect, almost exactly replicating her recorded tracks. She tried to add some personality to the show with the staging and transitions and the band were impressive. It is still impossible, however, to get over the impact of the crowd. As this is clearly the majority of her fan base, if I were to go to a future gig of hers it would also presumably mean that it would attract the same mix of people. It’s hard to recommend going to see Billie live as this did have such an overbearing impact on the night. However, I would still praise her set greatly and maybe suggest seeing her at a festival where the crowd may be more varied, or if you do catch her gig maybe take to the balconies above rather than being in the mix of the lower standing area.