Billie Eilish can still go from ocean eyes to bedroom torture chamber eyes real quick.
The 20-year-old alt-pop prodigy licked her lips, head tilted down ever so slightly, letting the crimson stage lights underline the wicked expression in her baby blues as she wandered down the TD Garden catwalk last night (February 20). The beat of “Oxytocin” heaved in the background as her face contorted to divulge a villainous offer: “If you find it hard to swallow / I can loosen up your collar.”
You earn that level of confidence when you have such a chokehold on the music industry, and in the three years since Eilish’s last Boston performance, that grip has tightened from a serious squeeze to a full-on strangle. But unlike the days of her debut full-length album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? , Eilish’s new era keeps the macabre to a minimum, with “Oxytocin” as a particularly suggestive exception.
Like we suspected in 2019, Eilish’s mastery of all things sinister is outweighed only by her songwriting skills, regardless of whether her output is disturbed or delicate. If Billie were to cut back on her creepshow, she’d still be as mighty as ever — which is how she appeared at TD Garden last night for her Happier Than Ever tour. This is another one of those articles, articles, articles about how she remains damn remarkable, especially when she doesn’t need hokey horror clips to illustrate her newest nightmares.
A mile-wide LED screen flickered with footage of cars veering down a desolate highway as Eilish stood smack in the center of a ramp “road” dotted with white traffic lines, pointing to the constant peril that tails her and her sky-high celebrity status. “You couldn’t save me / But you can’t let me go” she wailed from the top of her perch during “NDA,“ the same song that features the unfortunate quips “Did you think I’d show up in a limousine? No / Had to save my money for security / Got a stalker walking up and down the street.”
So long, demon days: Eilish’s strange addiction to morbid metaphors has morphed into different monsters, like mortality, stalking, and callous unsolicited opinions about her appearance. These tormentors haunt her across social media, news broadcasts, and in the case of “NDA,” literally “down the street.” They’re inescapable; they’re alarmingly real, unlike a video montage of gory glory than she can turn off, ignore, and put behind her with relative ease. For every issue she can’t avoid, she spilled a song about onstage, each one a chart-topping call to action.
Her acoustic attention to “Your Power” alongside her brother FINNEAS bled with tenderness towards vulnerable young women abused by a merciless industry. The interlude video “Not My Responsibility” — which declares that senseless scrutiny of Eilish’s body and fashion choices frankly isn’t her problem — depicted a younger popstar, still rocking her circa-2019 black and green hairdo. The images are behind the times; the message, regrettably, is not. As the interlude distracted fans, Eilish crept onto a boom lift at the back of the general admission pit to perform “OverHeated” from 40 feet in the air, swooping in circles over the farthest sections of the audience. She locked eyes with each loge to dispel any rumors about her natural physique: “I was only built like everybody else now / But I didn’t get a surgery to help out / ‘Cause I’m not about to redesign myself now, am I?” The singer admonished these intrusions into her well-being, yet never walled herself off from fans, even stooping to a vulnerable enough state to rhyme private topics (“pornography” and “therapy”) in “Male Fantasy.”
Eilish exerted cocky control over each uneasy conversation, which she balanced with unscripted moments of charisma: Nonchalantly twirling a (clearly used) pink bra tossed onstage during “Billie Bossa Nova,” then politely refusing a hairbrush from a fan upon letting down her messy pigtails (“I feel like it’s a bad idea to take that — I don’t know where it’s been, if you know what I mean.”) It’s the same formula that made “bad guy” a winning number, folding cunning charm into a command of alt-pop that’s still unparalleled three years later.
Look, if someone publicly claims they don’t give a fuck, they likely give at least a fraction of one. If someone shares they’re “happier than ever” without prompting, there’s probably a fib tucked somewhere inside that statement, too. But we have reason to believe Eilish means what she says, even when tears stain her cheek on the Happier Than Ever album art.
The Billie Eilish of 2022 carries more wisdom than the girl who recorded “bad guy” — there is no more submission, no more “bruises on both her knees for you” (she sports kneepads now). She flashed toothy grins when she crooned her usual tear-jerkers “when the party’s over” and “everything I wanted.” Her performance of “No Time To Die” countered her obligatory cries of “I want to end me” in “bury a friend.” She’s plagued by threats on her life, her livelihood, and her sanity, but she recognizes her platform and consciously chooses to call bullshit at every chance she can.
As 17,000 fans witnessed last evening, Billie Eilish at 20 years old is Billie 2.0. She still has problems worth howling about. Society’s naysayers continue to nip at her sneaker-clad heels, despite the Grammy awards (and the album sales, and the recent Oscar nomination, and her unflappable personality). But if these threats haven’t hindered her hitmaking abilities yet, perhaps they never will.
“I’d never treat me this shitty!” she exploded during the show’s finale, reciting the punchline of her new album’s title track. This Billie 2.0 has pinpointed what she stands for — and more importantly, what she absolutely won’t stand for. And that distinction makes her happier than ever.