Let’s Hear It for the Show of the Year: Lorde @ Scotiabank Arena
- NOV. 3, 2025
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- WRITTEN BY JULIANA DEFILIPPIS
At the end of September, I went to see Ella Yelich-O'Connor (better known as Lorde) perform at the Scotiabank Arena, on her Ultrasound Tour. This tour followed the release of her 2025 album Virgin, a chaotic, sexual, eccentric work which holds an inherent power and energy that is unique to anything that O’Conner has ever put out before. This album chronicles a vehement exploration of intimacy, identity, and the intricate balance between past and present, perceived and foretold, and introspection and overtness. After dropping her last album, Solar Power, in 2021, Virgin serves as Lorde’s highly anticipated return to the music world that marks not only a transformative recollection of O’Conner’s life, but a magnetic transformation of her artistry.
As a long-time fan and an avid concert attendee, this show was one of my most awaited of the year. I will shamefully admit that I missed all of Chanel Beads’ set due to a train delay but luckily arrived at my 300-level seats at Scotiabank just in time for The Japanese House, the perfect precursor to Lorde’s set. The Japanese House is a dreamy, synthy, melancholic artist that exemplifies the aspects of vulnerability and introspection that Lorde similarly works through on Virgin. She greeted the audience with “Touching Yourself,” a track with a resonant beat that immediately enthralled the audience, regardless of their familiarity with the band. As an avid listener, I found the blend of well-known and lesser-known tracks to be a captivating and inviting dynamic for the entire audience to experience. As she moved into the set with songs like “Boyhood,” singing, “I go out and try to chase myself/Find someone that might restore me,” The Japanese House explored themes of self-discovery in a way that I suspect left the crowd eager to delve deeper into their discography.
Lorde’s set opened with her song “Hammer,” a track about transformation and inner rebirth, making it a perfect introduction to how the rest of the set intertwined her past with her present. As an artist with such an expansive career, dating back over a decade since her EP, “The Love Club” was released, O’Conner appealed to the nostalgia that her fanbase has cultivated over the past thirteen years. Meshing classic hits like “Buzzcut Season,” “Royals,” and “No Better” with newer tracks such as “Man of the Year” and “Current Affairs” served as a symbolic conjunction of her transformative journey with the audience’s own.
This nostalgia came hand in hand with the apparent closeness of this tour. In a venue like Scotiabank Arena, it is not a simple task to foster a sense of intimacy with the crowd; however, through both the setlist and the composition of performances, O’Conner cultivated a dynamic that perfectly encapsulated the lyric, “I’ll kick you out and I’ll pull you in” from the track “Shapeshifter.” From the 300 level, I felt no further from her than anyone standing in General Admission. After "Shapeshifter," a track that puts her insecurities about love and selfhood on blatant display, O’Conner stripped down to boxers during “Current Affairs.” Virgin is all about transparency, about being raw and unapologetic about the ebbs and flows of a journey of self-discovery, and about confronting the universality of sexuality. This display of physical intimacy not only exemplifies the sexual nature of Virgin, but also instills a sense of connection between O’Conner and the surrounding crowd, cheering her on profusely. During “No Better,” she used a smaller video camera to follow her throughout the performance, which further integrated the audience into her journey.
As the show continued, O’Conner repeatedly spoke about feeling the crowd’s “energy” and, saying she felt “so close to everyone in the room.” This was one of the loudest crowds I have ever been a part of, and the setlist arrangement provided moments for screaming, but also quieter sections of processing and introspection. The Solar Power portion of the setlist, which just so happens to be my favourite of her albums, was the section of the show where I felt this sense of “energy” the most as she played the perfect songs to channel the complexities of Virgin. On “Big Star," O’Conner unlocks her various selves and confronts feelings of inferiority about her partner, similar to the themes of insecurity and performance exemplified in the Virgin track “Favourite Daughter.” “Oceanic Feeling,” the second Solar Power song to be played, explored the inverse, with a future-oriented optimistic perspective, demonstrating a duality similarly shown in the “discovery moments” on Virgin. The performance had an ambient aura around it, and not just because of the halo-like spotlights centred on O’Conner seated on the ground. This section emphasized the dynamic quality of her discography while still exploring themes that felt personalized to the crowd.
The real climax of the show was upon us as O'Connor began her performance of "David," in which she walks through the crowd in a lit-up jacket, electrifying them with passion for her introspective lyrics. As she sang, “I don’t belong to anyone” alongside the crowd, there was a sense of freedom being fostered, like a collective sigh heard reverberating throughout this massive arena. In singing the lyrics, “Am I ever gonna love again?” to a group of fans who had huddled around her in appreciation of her voice, journey and messages of growth, transparency and transformation, there was no question of the connection that Lorde forged with each member of the audience that night. There was an energy, and we all felt it.
As she closed with “Buzzcut Season,” a song about friendship, growing up, and looking back, everyone around me was embracing their friends, jumping up and down, and completely enthralled in this special energy of the Ultrasound Tour. Our loudness and exhilaration throughout each song demonstrated not only the profound effect of this album, but of Lorde as an artist who has raised a group of fans now old enough to deeply understand the messages she has been cultivating and musically sharing. Lorde’s performance and presence were my “Man of the Year,” my “Big Star,” and my “Green Light” all in one, and a show I will never let go of.
