By Marco A. Ayllon B.
Dallas Entertainment
News
Dallas TX, November 13,
2018
Yes, Billie
Eilish belongs to the Dallas city teenagers. Today, on November 13, 2018, we went
to a “Billie Eilish” concert with my daughter Kellsey (15) and my son Hallsten
(9) and their group of friends. Everybody had a hard time purchasing those tickets
together months in advance. A lot of followers were disappointed in
Dallas and as well as in other cities. All tickets were bought up by application
software bots in less than a second.
True fans were
unable to buy tickets despite their long wait until the last minute when all
ticketing web sites started selling tickets for the Billie Eilish concert. Now those
tickets are being resold at 10 times the original cost on StubHub. Just wanted
to surprise my daughter and son for another city, and I could not purchase
using popular sites. On Billie Eilish’s Twitter account, she mentioned: “We
just added a new show in Atlanta and Austin. Sign up for early access to my tickets.”
In Dallas,
at one of the best High Schools of United States called “Townview High school
of Health Professions,” many students from the School of Health were
disappointed after finding out how bots disable their dreams to purchase a concert
ticket.
On November 13,
at the Granada Theater in Dallas, Texas, I felt out of place because I wore an elegant
shirt and comfortable slacks, while as others wore jeans and t-shirts. The
crowd was collectively a foot shorter than any other live show crowd I’ve been
to at the same venue. The audience was comprised primarily of teenagers, adolescent
clusters, mostly girls—the only thing throwing off the shorter–than–average
mean height were the parent chaperones that bobbed along adjacent to their
respective offspring.
It makes
sense that Eilish appeals to teenage girls, considering she is one herself. At
the tender yet mighty age of 16, her youth is less betrayed by her lyrical
content, swelling production, and commanding energy than by the fans who turn
out in droves, decked out in identical neon merchandise with phones poised at
the ready.
Eilish
emerges as a hooded figure on top of a huge lighted spider, and a straight blue
hair color, and a landscape of sound, fog, and flashing lights immersing the
audience in her Billie’s Eilish world. Pulsing colors and almost theatrical
production introduce her to the tune of “my boy.” She spins across stage,
filling the lofted venue with a bounding energy. Repeatedly throughout the
show, she commands the audience to “fucking JUMP,” and at her plea they of
course do, to songs like “bellyache” and “&burn.”
Kellsey and brother,
Hallsten Ayllon, chanted and jumped along their friends on this special Billie
Eilish concert. Kellsey mentioned: “We saw Billie happy and energetic, however I
noticed she did not sing one of her unreleased songs.” Hallsten said, “Today is
my first concert, and Billie performed excellent. I had a good time at Granada
Theater in Dallas. I had just come from a Basketball game against Lake Highlands
preparatory in Dallas, and my team played a good game. Unfortunately, we lost
today, but coming to this concert changed my spirit.”
Billie
addressed the room with a magnetism belonging to the kind of cool girl who is
maybe too scary to approach, but when you get to know her, you’re relieved
she’s equally as chaotic, insecure, cheery, high-spirited, curious, etc. You
relish when she lets you in on her darker undersides, her secret vengeances,
and her vulnerabilities.
The blue–haired
chick sparkled in the colorful lights with an urgent energy that’s just as
quickly offset when she cracks up at the absurdity of it all. In the space
between two songs, the crowd cheering at blood–curdling pitches, Eilish laughs
and exclaims, “Damn, whatchall want!” and the audience laughs loudly, along
with her.
“If you hate
yourself, this song is for you,” Billie announces as the piano picks up the
opening chords of “idontwannabeyouanymore.” Exclamations of concert-goers could
be heard, “OMG so me!” weaving their way into the sound waves. The lyrics are
an ode to the self–deprecation of female adolescence, rendered forgivingly.
She
confronts the heartbreak of self–love with compassion and unflinching honesty:
“Don't be that way/Fall apart twice a day/I just wish you could feel what you
say.” Eilish laments being “told a tight dress is what makes you a whore” in
her all black with white letters in athletic ensemble of a Balenciaga sweatshirt
and black-colored sweat pants. In contrast, the darkly anthemic “you should see
me in a crown” parades her determination and confidence with an electric-blue colored
Crown given to her onstage by Hallsten Ayllon.
Billie's self–assuredness is less a shield and more a complement to the
kinks in her armor.
More recent
releases arrange loneliness as a spectrum of personal fictions: “You can
pretend you don't miss me/You can pretend you don't care,” she repeats in
“bitches broken hearts.” Inverting the perspective, she admits “I could lie,
say I like it like that, like it like that” in “when the party’s over.” In a
room full of people, these kinds of desolate confessions—concessions to
desolation—have a way of bringing people together.
Billie
Eilish charges the live production to offset the emotional and intense faculty
of her music.
Later, she
catches everyone off guard with a trap remix of the Mii Plaza song to the
delight of the audience. She jumped up and down to the rhythm of the music and
danced with passion. She reminds us that there is joy and cleansing in being
present with each other. Dancing and letting go, laughing at life’s
absurdities—such as when an audience member presented her a flower bouquet, Billie
joyfully embraced the roses to her heart and bashfully said, “Aw, my heart is
beating so fast!”
In many
ways, Billie Eilish can be seen as a product of a digitally native
generation—one that confronts existential crises by sharing memes and
simultaneously concerns itself, necessarily, with the future of a world in
crisis. She is empowered to contend with the full range of complexity and
emotion of personhood, of femininity, and of becoming. To this end, she belongs
to her following as much as they belong to her, her success joining with the
multi–dimensional grasp on the world her audience achieves.
Hallsten
alleged, “I know all of Billie Eilish’s songs and today I enjoyed her music and
her concert. At 9 years old, I’m learning what it means to become a teenager
and be able to make big decisions when I feel not nearly as far away from becoming
a teenager as I thought I would be.”
Kellsey retorted,
“Coming to Billie’s concert with my family was so special to me. Today I screamed,
and I sung all of Billie Eilish’s songs. Being still 15 is exhausting because
of my busy schedule. Between my soccer games and practices and challenging school
work, I had made an effort to come! As students, we feel drained and exhausted,
and on weekends we sometime become too absorbed by our routines, and I don’t try
to let them consume me (sometimes they still do).
Sometimes,
we as teenagers get lonely, withdrawn, and insecure. Most of the time, I want
to ignite the fire in my veins rather than diffuse it by jumping along Billie
Eilish’s melodies, to the flashing lights and explosive percussion and, yes, to
try to continue to stay ahead of those girls my age.”
Rounding off
her concert hour, Eilish enchants the audience in the encore with “ocean eyes,”
a defusal of heartache and a lesson in indulging in all of your
stomach–in–knots feelings at once. Her final song is the detonating “COPYCAT,”
and then she takes her bows, exiting to a recording of the theme song
from The Office. Billie
Eilish’s ability to mix humor with self–deprecation, confidence with
confession, and a big Tarantula spider with heartache and remorse, make her a
powerhouse. She is wise, not in spite of her years, but in light of them. MAAB
© 2018
