Amid her Solar Power world tour, pop's resident "weird elder stateswoman" Lorde has garnered viral attention with live performance clips for a pretty unlikely reason: shushing the crowd.
Yes, we all know audiences can get rather rowdy. There's always some guy yelling nonsense during quiet moments of the set, and sometimes artists need to interrupt the smatterings of applause and cheering to get on with the show. There's also a matter of respect involved — like how Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker recently asked fans not to talk during the opening act, saying: "Sometimes I have this feeling like, if only the room were quiet, this could be so incredible."
But the Kiwi singer-songwriter takes it one step further, getting characteristically offbeat with her audience participation (or lack thereof). She doesn't even want the audience singing along, in this case — specifically during an a capella moment of ballad "Writer in the Dark."
UPDATE (4/25, 9:30 a.m. ET): Lorde has responded to the trend in a video reportedly sent to fans via DM on Instagram, saying that she had "wanted to try something different" with that moment in the set. The pop star added: "Also, that dramatic-ass move was literally for an album called Melodrama, so don't stress too hard."
Yes, we all know audiences can get rather rowdy. There's always some guy yelling nonsense during quiet moments of the set, and sometimes artists need to interrupt the smatterings of applause and cheering to get on with the show. There's also a matter of respect involved — like how Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker recently asked fans not to talk during the opening act, saying: "Sometimes I have this feeling like, if only the room were quiet, this could be so incredible."
But the Kiwi singer-songwriter takes it one step further, getting characteristically offbeat with her audience participation (or lack thereof). She doesn't even want the audience singing along, in this case — specifically during an a capella moment of ballad "Writer in the Dark."
UPDATE (4/25, 9:30 a.m. ET): Lorde has responded to the trend in a video reportedly sent to fans via DM on Instagram, saying that she had "wanted to try something different" with that moment in the set. The pop star added: "Also, that dramatic-ass move was literally for an album called Melodrama, so don't stress too hard."
Our best efforts trace the beginnings of the TikTok explosion back to this video, which was the one that prompted Coco Lashar (@real_lady_hands) to post a video she had taken at the same show. It has now been viewed over 13.8 million times, and numerous other Lorde concert attendees have shared their own footage.
Naturally, people have takes, with some TikToks even posing the question in the video description, asking whether users think the artist's actions were "rude or warranted." Commenters have called the pop star's move "awkward" and "embarrassing."@real_lady_hands lololol I just saw the other video and was like wait I was there I snuck into this concert :) #lorde ♬ original sound - cocolashar
"People are being so hard on her," Lashar told Newsweek. "Out of context, the video does seem really awkward so [I] get why people are freaking out about it, but at the time it felt like part of an intimate concert." The TikToker added that she believes Lorde called for the audience to hush because the concert she attended at New York's Bowery Ballroom on June 16, 2017, was being streamed live on SiriusXM.
Others have taken it upon themselves to level-up the meme game with compilations of various Lorde shushing moments.
@ryanmichaeldobson she's really like ✋🏼stop✋🏼 #lorde #funny #meme #live ♬ original sound - ryanmichaeldobson
While most of the viral clips are a few years old, compiled during the pop star's touring in support of her 2017 opus Melodrama, there has indeed also been an incident on the current trek.
@josiahlordex lorde SHH the crowd due to tech issues tonight. ✨ VID CREDIT @32miya ✨ #lorde #toronto #solarpowertour #concert #2022 #music #pop #melodrama #solarpower ♬ original sound - josiah
Living her best offline life, the prettier Jesus herself has yet to acknowledge the viral trend and is perhaps blissfully unaware — she doesn't want to hear anything about anything.
See some Twitter reactions to Lorde's potential shushing kink below.
