In the 1960s, and it was over even as early as the 1970s, there was a true generation gap as Western youth tried to break away from Glory and Gore of one war after another, endless war, constant war, fought by young men while young women mourned their dead. They broke away, the young men and women, they searched out everything from Western pop to Eastern mysticism, to pharmaceutical hallucinogenics, anything anything, to end the cycle and, for them, for us, they succeeded to a degree. Who even considers conscription in 2014? President Obama won’t think of putting boots on the ground with an enlisted army.
Still, one effect of their success has been an end to any real generation gap.
Flash forward 50 odd years and the fifteen year old New Zealand girl Lorde wrote one of the most important song of the 2010s and at the United Palace on Monday, September 15th, Lorde realized its importance… at least for her. As part of an extended introduction to the song,”Ribs”, the now 17 year old girl said: “I’m checking myself all the time, looking behind my back. Am I an adult yet, am I grown up now? Like it is something you can see, like it’s’ an aura.” Then she sang:
“The drink you spilt all over me
“Lover’s Spit” left on repeat
My mum and dad let me stay home
It drives you crazy getting old
This dream isn’t feeling sweet
We’re reeling through the midnight streets
And I’ve never felt more alone
It feels so scary getting old”
As a singer and as a pop performer, on stage, Lorde isn’t doing anything you haven’t heard before, more electronic based and more age appropriate, but we’ve heard it before, but she is right when she claims to speak almost solely to her peers. This is music about and for a generation apart from ours and in concert the young girl moves in epileptic fits, half hunchback of Notre Dame, half wild woman with 60 cats, with just drums and synths behind her, and with a lot of backing tapes, she sings songs of puppy love and hard earned lessons about what constitutes a good life and what constitutes good morals. Whether sneering at the excesses of the pursuit of power (“Glory And Gore”) or the excesses of the pursuit of money (“Royals”) or even the simpleness of human connection (“Tennis Court”), it is placed in a definite time and age. It is her and her friends story.
In a fast paced 75 minute set, Lorde was beyond front and central, some lights, a little film, and this young right in the middle of the stage singing her heart out. Nothing to hide and nothing hidden, she poured herself into her songs, included a Bon Iver and a Kanye West cover, and presented them with an intensity and passion that brooked no nonsense. I saw Lorde at Roseland but, you know, it was Roseland, I didn’t see a damn thing. At the lovely United Palace, I could really watch her performance and she was so very very good.
But I wrote all of this last time and this time I was more interested in the things on the edge of Lorde, and her fear of the future. The generation gap is dead, you would love Lorde, I love Lorde, this isn’t FKA twig, this is mainstream modern pop, but Lorde has now positioned herself as a spokesperson for her generation and what she wants to say is there is something about where she is and where her peers and friends are where we aren’t. It isn’t the cultural seismic shift of the generation gap, she doesn’t want to tear down society, and neither does her contemporary and friend Iggy Azalia, they are happy to have their youth take it over for them while they step back ad watch themselves age in horror.
What is happening to Lorde is what happens to all of us except she can’t stop hearing the encroachment in her youth, the responsibility, which must be pretty overwhelming any way, is there still. This was the secret message of Taylor Swift, it is what she comes back too, they don’t want the responsibility of age, they don’t want to grow older. But youth without age would be meaningless and, sadly enough, life without death would he terrifying. what makes consciousnesses precious is its limits. what makes Lorde and her audience embrace youth is it doesn’t last. If it lasted, it wouldn’t matter at all. If we were, in the state of consciousness and physical being we are now, immortal, we would be in hell. We couldn’t stand it. 80 years might not be enough of life, but you better believe 500 years would be way too much.
Lorde’s great subject, her great thought, is that she gathers her limited youth and makes it a line drawn between her and them and us (I mean: me) and she presents it to her audience as a place where they share something unknowable or, no, that isn’t right, unsharable, by older people. If you ever read PL Travers “Mary Poppins” children stories, you may remember Travers even played harder with generational difference, when she had the newborns able to speak with the birds only to lose the gift once the babies are old enough to speak themselves. It is a glorious conceit and it is Lorde’s conceit, that you can speak to some people of a certain age and yet not be heard by people of an older age.
This leads us directly to the birth of rock and roll and what was lost when the teenagers of the 50s and 60s wouldn’t hand it back when they hit their 30s: rock might not be dead as an idiom, or a genre, or a term reflecting freedom and hope, but as youth music? It is dead, and that is what Lorde rails against.
Also, she rails against being a grown up even as she denies she is one, she mentions working till 4am the other day on a video and wondering if it is illegal. There is an undeniable sting where even when saying “I really really like New York City” she adds that she comes here to work. Since the age of 16, all of her 17th year, all she has done is work. Lorde joins Miley and Taylor as teens who work their tails off and have whole communities of employees and family looking to them. How hellish? wouldn’t you want to be young, wouldnt you want to stand back from the pressure and just be your age? And reject everything forcing you otherwise.
Lorde’s most important song explicitly warns herself of the dangers of responsibility and there she is, stuck with it. It is very sad and no wonder she deals with contempt for the writers and interviews, the David Lettermans of the world, she can’t reject her family so she rejects the entire community of entertainment leeches that do what she least wants. Like Gaga, she loves the audience, sees them as one person, one close friend who support her, who are her friends, who mates, who love her and listen to her and care for her. Her support system, while age encroaches against her and responsibility hounds her and everywhere she turns she finds more work.
Alone on stage, all support systems except the audience disappears. Opening duo Magical Cloudz were quite good, performing electronic pop with a powerful baritone lead singer, but you got the point pretty quickly and earlier this week Chromeo couldn’t project at Summerstage, but Lorde is a great live performer, you want to watch her, her strangeness is a layer she peels through out the concert and then reveals the girl underneath it (literally: she takes off a black cape and changes to a midriff bearing white jumpsuit).
And then alone in the spotlight Lorde stands before a marquee which bears the legend: “The tragic and wonderful triumphal procession of Lorde”.
End Of Act One
Grade: A-
