Billie Eilish live in London: pop sensation thrives in effortless spectacle

Billie Eilish is just as awe-struck as her crowd during the first London show of Happier Than Ever, The World Tour. “Oh my god, the O2,” she says. “This is night one of six f****** shows here,” having added two extra dates due to demand.

While the singer has been busy ascending to biggest-pop-star-in-the-world status over the past few years, only now has she been able to return, three years since her last show here. Having experienced her first-ever headline gig in this city at The Courtyard in 2017, which holds just 220 people, now she’s looking out at 20,000 adoring fans. Later this month, she’s also set to make history as Glastonbury’s youngest ever headliner.

The nightmarish world of her debut When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and the spell-binding glamour of Happier Than Ever is finely balanced tonight (June 10). During the smothering ‘bury a friend’, the singer peers through her fringe with a dead-behind-the-eyes stare, glitchy monsters imposing on the screen behind her as she performs a hands-free backbend. Digital arachnids scuttle during ‘you should see me in a crown’, where she halts the brain-rattling baseline mid-song to conduct a banshee-like wail from the crowd.

But there’s sensuality and salsa too, as she crawls down the walkway on the cheeky ‘Therefore I Am’, her hips meeting the floor as she cooes sweet, husky tones on ‘my strange addiction’. The crowd is equally intoxicated by the naked vocals of ‘idontwannabeyouanymore’, the haunting ‘when the party’s over’ and acoustic ‘Your Power’ with brother Finneas, though her voice is always still slightly too veiled in instrumentals to experience a totally raw Eilish. 

Her hold on the crowd is remarkable, from the attention she commands to announce the three rules of her shows (1. Don’t be an asshole. 2. Don’t judge anyone. 3. Have fun), to the purging ‘Oxytocin’, for which she makes the crowd sink to the ground before rocketing into the air. The responsibility that comes with such an entranced audience is not lost on Eilish, as a montage of environmental disasters plays behind her during ‘all the good girls go to hell’, later stating that we’ve “gotta do a better job of protecting this planet”.

Then there’s poignant new heartbreak song ‘TV’, which she plays live for just the third time, referencing the recent abortion rights controversy in the US, and the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial: “The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial / While they’re overturning Roe v. Wade.” 

But unadulterated positivity still rings throughout. “I want you to know that you are safe, and very loved and you are important,” she says after asking everyone to close their eyes. Just over halfway through the set, Eilish covertly appears at the back of the arena, ascending above the crowd on a crane. Fans who had no hopes of getting so close are now watching the pop star perform just metres from their head. 

‘bad guy’ sends the crowd wild for a final time, Eilish kicking each beat with flailing legs before confetti rains from the sky. An anti-fairytale ending in the shape of ‘Happier Than Ever’ closes the night, where there’s not a piece out of place. For a 20-year-old singer who breezes through an arena show with the self-assurance of even the most seasoned performers, the crowds are only set to get bigger for a star of such once-in-a-generation proportions.