Billie Eilish

Everyone remembers their first live concert. Mine was Soft Cell at the Hammersmith Palais in 1983. I vividly rememeber it to this day. Last night I took my daughter and a friend to see Billie Eilish in Miami. It was her first ever experience of a proper large gig.

I have been to hundreds of live shows, but you never forget your first. It is a right of passage.

The show was exceptional. Musically exemplary, the set was both ambitious and impressive and Billie Eilish is an incredibe talent sprinkled in stardust. The girls loved it and were buzzing all the way home today.

Billie is a generational talent, she was just 13 when she released Ocean Eyes, which she performed magnificently last night.

Miami is her first stop of this North American part of her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour which she began a year ago. Her last tour was abruptly halted after one night in Miami due to the pandemic, which only exaggerated the noisy welcome she got here on her second night of three in the city.

The lights dimmed at 8.30pm and a large cube sat centre stage that glowed white and there she was wearing a baseball cap and an American football jersey to match almost two thirds of the audience. I had toyed with wearing my Chicago Bears shirt, but decided against it.

She danced, ran, sat, lay down, played piano and guitar in every corner of a giant rectangular stage in the middle of the circular arena, rather than on a typical stage at one end of the room. We were sat high but centre so we had a 360 view to all of the action.

The whole stage was covered in LED panels that change colour or show different graphics. Her image was everywhere and her face with those incredible eyes, and flushed cheeks you just want to pinch were close up on a trifecta of massive screens.

The love was mutual and all around, and the screaming was incessant, apart from one whole minute when she asked for silence as she sang a quiet harmony with herself for When the Party’s Over.

Every song was pitch perfect, my personal favourites were Wildflower, The Greatest, Blue and Ocean Eyes but there was not a dud. She performed for about a 100 minutes plus she threw in a bonus track according to my daughter slightly amending the tour playlist.

It was a great night and it made me happy to make these memories with my daughter.