Review: Billie Eilish Delights Crowd on First Night in Miami

As the minutes clicked past 8 p.m. Thursday night, the Kaseya Center crowd started getting antsy to see their favorite pop phenomenon, Billie Eilish. A wave broke out around the arena. When roadies came out on the floor pushing a dolly with a container large enough to hold a rock star, there were screams in anticipation that the headliner might pop out of it. Finally, a bit after 8:30 p.m., the house lights dimmed to black, a large cube at the center of a stage glowed white, and the first night of three Miami dates of the Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour was on.

It had been five long years since Billie Eilish’s last and only previous Miami concert. That was March 2020, when she kicked off her Where Do We Go? World Tour that had to be canceled after only three shows when the world shut down for COVID.  Whether it was superstition or logistics that prevented her from returning for another South Florida date, Eilish is making up for lost time with three sold-out nights in Miami this weekend.

I’m not sure her fans could wait any longer because as that glowing cube rose from the stage floor toward the rafters, there was a brief second you could see Eilish in the cube, and the crowd went ballistic. The screams grew even louder when she was fully revealed in her sports jersey with the number 69 and a baseball cap on her head, and she went into “Chihiro”. The platform took her back down to Earth, or more specifically, to the elevated stage that was shaped like a figure eight. That stage was right in the middle of the floor, so that everyone in the oval venue had a view. Throughout the night, Eilish ran up and down the stage so that every corner of the arena had some equal opportunity facetime with her. Or if you preferred, you could stare at the massive trifecta of screens that showed her in close-up singing close to two dozen of her tunes.

Her four-member backing band, plus two backup singers, were positioned in a pair of pits, one on each side of the stage, allowing all the attention to be focused on Eilish. The adoring crowd hung on her every verse and smile. The show featured all kinds of visual gimmicks, from lasers to pyrotechnics, but the most amazing trick was when Eilish sat criss-cross applesauce in the center of the stage, five tracks into the show. Amidst all kinds of screams, Billie said, “I’m going to use a loop of my voice for this next song that can only work if the entire room is silent. Do you think you can do it?” And the unthinkable happened. Thousands of screamers went silent as she went into a quiet harmony with herself for “When the Party’s Over.”

When she gave them permission to scream again a minute into the song they obliged. The crowd stayed on its feet for most of the ninety-minute set, with the lone exception being when Eilish gave everyone permission to sit down for a three-song mellow section of the evening, where she strapped on an acoustic guitar for “Your Power” followed by “Skinny”. By the time she got to “TV,” a quiet song of self-pity, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

The tempo increased when the club beat of “Guess” came on. The video of Charli XCX sing-speaking her part of the song played on the screens while Billie snuck off a side stage, which she trampolined out of in time for her portion of the lyrics.

A few songs later, the house lights came on. She introduced her band and expressed extreme gratitude to all her fans, who thanked her right back, with screams of “I Love You!” After closing things out with “Birds of a Feather,” Eilish ran around the stage and bowed to each corner of the crowd. There was no encore, but if you have a comfortable credit limit, you can (barring another sudden global shutdown) return to see her on Saturday or Sunday night. 

Setlist:    

“Chihiro”
“Lunch”
“NDA”
“Therefore I Am”
“Wildflower”
“When the Party’s Over”
“The Diner”
“Ilomilo”
“Bad Guy”
“The Greatest”
“Your Power”
“Skinny”
“TV”
“Bury a Friend”
“Oxytocin”
“Guess”
“Everything I Wanted”
“Lovely” / “Blue” / “Ocean Eyes”
“L’Amour de Ma Vie”
“What Was I Made For?”
“Happier Than Ever”
“Birds of a Feather”