Lights with Tillie
The Baby I’m Back Tour
Irving Plaza
New York, NY
April 19th, 2022
On the evening of Tuesday, April 19th, Canadian pop sensation, Lights, brought her Baby I’m Back Tour to New York’s infamous Irving Plaza, with alt-pop singer Tillie, as support. I’m no stranger to Lights, she was the first musician that I truly fell in love with when I first began exploring my own music taste and not just the mixtape CD’s my older sister used to burn for me before heading off to summer camp. Throughout my middle and high school years, Lights served as a constant for me. She was the first concert I went to on my own, in 2011 and then again in 2012. She was the first artist that I met in person and truly felt like I was going to collapse in front of (the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square in 2014). To say that I’m a big fan would be the most sincere understatement of the century. I am constantly in awe of her talents and the little worlds she manages to create within each and every one of her albums to date. Her performance on Tuesday evening was quite the full circle moment for me, as Lights was the also the first artist that I ever photographed and it was at the same very venue, Irving Plaza, eight years prior!
Around 8pm, Tillie took to the stage to kick things off. Bathed in beautiful white, blue and green lights, Tillie wasted no time getting the party started. The Los Angeles based singer started her performance with the angsty independence anthem, “Peachie” before slinging her bass across her back and jumping into “Hell Yeah!” I had heard of Tillie previously, on one of the many Warped Tour runs that I had attended and she has truly transformed and blossomed over the years. Tillie’s performance on Tuesday evening proved to anyone and everyone that nobody knows Tillie better than Tillie, herself. She exuded confidence and commanded the stage that evening, bouncing and kicking from side to side of the tiny Irving Plaza stage. The large screen behind her flipped between a grungy mouth and tongue and the Tillie logo, throughout her entire performance, making it truly impossible for us to forget who Tillie is! By the end of her performance, Tillie had surely garnered more than just a few new fans as faint chants for more songs began as she started to walk off the stage.
As the clock inched closer to 9pm, fans along the barricade started to get antsy with anticipation. I listened in to conversations along the barricade of how many Lights shows everyone had been to and it seemed that her most dedicated fans had found their way to the front. Much like me, many of the people in the front had been with Lights for nearly two decades and they were all just as excited as the first time!
Lights took to the stage a couple minutes early, catching everyone in the venue by surprise. She immediately ripped into “Prodigal Daughter” off her most recent album PEP. Immediately chills were sent down my spine and I felt all the love in the world for Lights as I watched her perform. After all these years, her energy only increases! Lights offered fans the best and most comprehensive stage set that I’ve seen on the multiple tours she’s been on — three towering LED screens that played accompanying animations with each song she played and her high energy support of our dear friend Brody on the Bass/Guitar and Jess Bowen (yes, the Jess Bowen of The Summer Set) on drums.
Lights played a lengthy and diverse setlist that spanned across all of her albums, including “Savage” from Skin & Earth, “Lions” and “Ice” from her self titled debut album, the title track from “Siberia”, Running with the Boys” from Little Machines and plenty of others — including some of her pandemic-era EDM style music “Batshit” and an acoustic rendition of her song “When The Summer Dies” with deadmau5.
I could go on for hours about how much I love Lights and how amazing her performance was on Tuesday night, but at the end of the day nothing surprised me from the evening (in a great way). After all these years of seeing Lights, I came into the show knowing what to expect and I was blown away as I always am. I expected Lights to be an absolute vocal powerhouse, which she was. I expected Lights to have an insane amount of energy, and she did. Her attitude, happiness and positivity is beyond contagious and infectious. It is truly impossible to not dance and have the time of your life at a Lights concert. Baby she’s back!
Tillie
Lights
