Billie Eilish escapes containment at T-Mobile with sick day scrappiness

Brock Wilbur,
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Billie Eilish at T-Mobile Center. // Photo by Brock Wilbur

When a three-story tall metal cage is lowered into the center of T-Mobile Center, that usually means you’re in for an evening of professional wrestling. In place of a WWE, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour swung through on Saturday, Nov. 16, filling the center stage Thunderdome with emotional wrestling. For what it’s worth, the sold-out Eilish octagon battle landed infinitely louder than my last few visits to T-Mobile for dudes fighting.

Nat & Alex Wolff opened the evening with a solid 11-song set. The brothers, formerly of Nickelodeon’s The Naked Brothers Band, paid tribute early in their set with a cover of “If That’s Not Love.” After three-ish albums of material as a separate, grown-up pop duo, the set showed off two musicians desperately seeking a stable footing between worlds. On songs like “Winter Baby,” you could see a gritty, powerful rock group—punctuated by stagecraft, including a guitar solo so ferocious it split a musician’s lip. Some genuine bangers like this were alternated by some of the most generic, forgettable tracks imaginable.

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Billie Eilish at T-Mobile Center. // Photo by Brock Wilbur

As someone who considers themselves a fan, I find it frustrating to watch artists treading a thin path between the safest path and a dangerous cliff where their talent shines through. And none of these tracks line up with a chronological release schedule—not a straight path toward one or the other endpoint, but rather the annoyance of seeing a career constrained by whatever force prevents them from taking songwriting risks after a lifetime on stage. The stand-out moments of the set where more than enough to reinforce my belief in the band, and the other songs were simply unmemorable filler—on a tour built on going big or going home. Here’s hoping their forthcoming LP is a chance to break through to where they belong.

After the opening set, an extended downtime ensued that could have easily fit an entire extra act. I’m glad that it didn’t, as keeping away from an overly packed evening when there was a clear, laser-pinpointed purpose for the powderkeg gathered in downtown KC. A gigantic metal Faraday cage lowered onto the stage, and a pleasant hour passed until Billie Eilish came to break containment and burn the house down.

When the lights fell on T-Mobile, a box of digital distortion was broadcast in pulsing white blasts at the center of the room, on a floor-filling stage oriented at the center of the venue instead of shoved up against one side. When the box finally levitated off the floor, the remainder of the evening saw Eilish given a flat, lit-up stage, with her minimal set of band members recessed until they were barely visible. The effect was a minimalist, equitable perspective, where every seat in the house had an equally good view. The sparse staging, devoid of props or people, delivered the perfect physical manifestation of Eilish’s work—a sort of dreamlike wanderlust as if a child were listing around their bedroom, singing to themself and for themself, drifting about in their own imagination while performing for a floating, unmoored audience of a million and none all at once.

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Billie Eilish at T-Mobile Center. // Photo by Brock Wilbur

Except for the points where fire exploded from the stage or a million lasers devastated the space. That was arena rock in the truest sense.

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Billie Eilish at T-Mobile Center. // Photo by Brock Wilbur

The “Hit Me Hard And Soft Tour” brought an equal balance of songs from across Eilish’s major LPs, along with a few sampled surprises and, of course, the sparse destruction of “What Was I Made For?” from the Barbie soundtrack as a capper on the night. The discography’s consistency allowed for structuring and order to pique the ebbs and flows of dynamics, with the first third’s crescendo cut back by a mid-show stripped-back section, featuring Billie alongside her backing singers and an acoustic guitar—handling the heavy emotional burden of processing the socio-political moment with care and honest repose.

Around this midpoint, Eilish admitted that she’d been sick for the last few days of the tour, and had only really noticed mid-show in Chicago. If not for an errant cough or two, it would have been impossible to tell—making her apology for “maybe sounding raspy tonight” feel more humorous than it was probably intended. It would have been difficult to imagine her sounding more like her; one of the few artists who is only more tonally on brand when she’s working through something.

One of the best concerts to hit KC since the pandemic. It was also packed floor to ceiling with two hours of some of the loudest reactions I’ve ever heard in the venue. Eilish could not have been in better form and clearly having just as much fun as anyone else in the building, drifting through two hours of angst, dissociation, and revenge plots.

Setlist:

HIT ME HARD AND SOFT
Happier Than Ever
WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

Billie Eilish 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 / idontwannabeyouanymore / ocean eyes
L’AMOUR DE MA VIE
What Was I Made For?
Happier Than Ever
BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Nat & Alex Wolff Setlist
Public Places
Rollin’ Around
If That’s Not Love (The Naked Brothers Band cover)
Winter Baby
Lucky You
All Over You
If I’m Gonna Die
Backup Plan
Soft Kissing Hour
All My Plans (Shake)
Glue

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