Two years after she was initially set to play Detroit, the brooding pop star threw a party at Little Caesars Arena for a rapt capacity crowd.
Taking a seat onstage late in her Detroit show Saturday night, Billie Eilish had a request for fans: Put the phones down, breathe deep, cherish that we’re all here and soak in the moment. As she became enveloped by stately columns of light at Little Caesars Arena, the 20-year-old pop star had just acknowledged the elephant in the room. Without actually using the words, she’d asked her capacity crowd to value this time of togetherness after two years of pandemic isolation. It was a rare subdued moment in a show that was otherwise bounding with energy, all of it generated directly by Eilish, who spent the 100-minute festivities jumping, scampering and slinking across her sleek but spare stage. Playing the latest stop on her Happier Than Ever world tour, Eilish looked confident and in command — a more assured, comfortable performer than the 16-year-old newcomer Detroit saw at the 2018 Mo Pop Festival. Eilish went on to break huge not long after that Detroit appearance. Armed with heart-baring, soul-searching songs — raw, moody and catchy in nontraditional ways — she tallied up a slew of sweet-and-sour hits while bonding deeply with a young audience whose rapt attention on Saturday told the whole story.
