Lily Allen brought her critically acclaimed album West End Girl to Los Angeles over the weekend, drawing in sold-out crowds at downtown L.A.’s Orpheum Theater.
Lily Allen Performs West End Girl, the singer’s latest tour, is more of a one-woman show than a pop concert. The singer-songwriter performs the entirety of her vulnerable latest album, West End Girl. The theater setting allows fans to fully dive into the world of the album, with elaborate sets one might find, well, on the West End instead of a pop concert.
Playing her second of two shows in L.A., Allen began the album from the beginning with the titular track, phone call and all. One of the most impressive things about Allen’s show is her dedication to the character she’s portraying on stage and that she never once breaks it.
Never once does the singer stop to address the crowd, only pausing for brief set and costume changes, or breaking the fourth wall of the narrative. That didn’t stop the crowd, however, from chiming in with jams aimed at Allen’s ex-husband, David Harbour, including one audience member shouting “fuck him,” which elicited laughs from fellow audience members.
The show, which clocks in at roughly an hour, is more than worth it. If it were any other show, an hour would be an almost offensively short amount of time for a headliner to perform, but with West End Girl, it clearly works. It’s perhaps one of the best ways music can be enjoyed — in the most theatrical way possible.
During “Madeline,” the album’s lead single, Allen chooses a member of the crowd to represent the song’s namesake. For fans at Sunday’s L.A. performance, they were treated to an appearance from actress and reality TV icon Lisa Rinna, who danced under a spotlight on her seat as Allen sang.
Throughout most of the show, fans in L.A. stayed put in their seats, until later in the set when it seemed like the diehard fans couldn’t help but get up to dance along with Allen’s singing. Given the set design, the lack of dialogue to the crowd and the theatrical environment, it was a bit of a gamble. But once some of the crowd got to their feet, many joined to dance and sway along.
Unsurprisingly, as the song is a highlight on Allen’s album as well, “Pussy Palace” was a standout moment during the show. Through some well-placed video projection and sound effects, it felt as if Allen was hopping on the New York subway to this apartment, taking the audience along for the ride.
The outfits Allen wore were another bright spot of the show, and some have already sparked online chatter. During “4chan Stan,” Allen wraps herself in fabric that appears to be littered with receipts, a reference to the song in which she finds out her husband’s bought someone else a luxury handbag (“Never been in Bergdorf’s / But you took someone shopping there in May, ’24 / You bought her a handbag, it wasn’t cheap”).
To end the show, flowers were passed to Allen on stage, who took a bow for the adoring audience. She performed no encores, simply concluding the show with the album’s last track, “Fruityloop.”
The British singer-songwriter will continue the tour on April 28 in San Francisco. She’ll pick the tour back up in the summer, opting to perform in arenas across the U.K., U.S., Canada and Australia.
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