“Coachella! This is so beautiful,” said Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, the 17-year-old singer from New Zealand who is better known as the Lorde, while she looked out toward the horizon at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Saturday, April 12. “Did you get to go on the Ferris wheel?” she asked.

After singing “Buzzcut Season” from her 2013 release Pure Heroine (Lava Records), Lorde addressed the assembled audience. “We have to skip a song or they’re gonna cut us off. You don’t want to miss out on the best songs of the set do you?” But instead of launching into her next song, Lorde confessed that performing on the Outdoor stage in Indio was, “a pretty big moment.” After she explained that the concert was “actually the first big thing we ever booked,” she screamed, “This is mental.”

And Lorde still wasn’t finished. She next narrated a play-by-play on her inspiration for “Ribs,” another tune from her debut album. “The song we’re about to play was written about a year ago. I wrote it after a couple of experiences. One of them being a hugely out-of-control house party at my house that I threw when my parents were away. Which was fun, but it freaked me out. And it freaked me out because it made me realize how quickly you can become a grownup after thinking it’ll never catch up to you your entire life of being a kid. Because throwing a party feels kind of grown up. And the other experience that I had just before I wrote this song, a day before I wrote it, I went to a festival in New Zealand… and I came out of that festival bleeding and with no voice and no feet and I was covered in sunburn and had the time of my life watching music as the sun went down.”

Lorde said the combination of the two experiences led her to put pen to paper, “that sweet happy elated feeling and that sadness made me write this song.” She noted that the two divergent emotions fuel many of her compositions before admitting to the audience, “You’re here and you make me feel less scared about getting older because it’s something I’m terrified of.” Then she began singing “Ribs.” And, as fans looked on, the singer launched into her Grammy-winning hit, “Royals.”

Lorde followed “Royals” with “Team,” and donned a gold foil dress halfway through the tune. The shimmering effect reminded concert-goers of such seasoned performers as Diana Ross. It was the most eye-catching and memorable garment worn at this year’s festival.

By Elizabeth Varnell

Setlist:
“Glory and Gore”
“Biting Down”
“Tennis Court”
“White Teeth Teens”
“Buzzcut Season”
“Ribs”
“Royals”
“Team”
“A World Alone”

Pictured: Lorde performing at Coachella.
Photo by Christopher Polk for Getty Images

 

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