Downtown Las Vegas lit up in September 2022 when Lorde headlined the Life is Beautiful Festival. The New Zealand pop force turned the open-air setting into a showcase for an artist who’d grown from teenage prodigy into a commanding performer, balancing theatrical, emotionally resonant pop with the kind of intimacy that pulls a massive crowd in close.
The setlist moved through every chapter of her catalogue. Songs from ‘Pure Heroine’ landed hard, including the generation-defining “Royals” and the wistful “Ribs,” while ‘Melodrama’ anthems “Green Light” and “Supercut” cracked the night open. She wove in the sun-soaked material from ‘Solar Power’ and slipped in a delightfully retro cover of Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer.”