After finding her album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? back atop the U.S. album charts, Billie Eilish returned to Chicago on her world tour following a raucous Lollapalooza set last year.
Originally scheduled for two nights at the five-thousand-capacity Aragon Ballroom in the city’s Uptown neighborhood, demand forced a venue change across town to the United Center, home to the Chicago Bulls. A ready-made headliner, it’s hard to imagine Eilish as anything but a fully conceptualized artist. At just seventeen years old, she easily sold out the spacious 18k-capacity stadium.
Though the all-ages audience consisted of mostly younger female fans, Eilish’s mass appeal has ensured her place as an emerging global icon. Even Korean pop star Jungkook of BTS couldn’t resist lip syncing to Eilish’s “bad guy” recently.
Production added a catwalk for the show, which Eilish made fair use of to get closer to her hordes of fans, screaming along to every lyric. Wearing custom streetwear, shorts, and a shirt emblazoned with smiley faces and “I ❤️ BILLIE EILISH” across the chest, the Los Angeles teen is already something of a style icon. She’s collaborating with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami on an action figure, and the famed Japanese contemporary artist has also created an animated video for her song “you should see me in a crown.”
The nineteen-song setlist covered Eilish’s short but expansive career, from her first hit “Ocean Eyes”—which propelled her toward stardom in 2016, to “bellyache” from her debut EP don’t smile at me, to “watch / &burn,” whose album version features a guest appearance by fellow Los Angeleno Vince Staples. She opened the night with her current monster hit “bad guy.”
With the majority of Eilish’s remaining tour dates sold out, the pop queen’s global trek is scheduled to continue through November. Get more tour info here.
See more Billie pix in the gallery below.
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- by Joshua Mellin
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- by Joshua Mellin
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- by Joshua Mellin
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- by Joshua Mellin
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- by Joshua Mellin
