Billie Eilish, Glasgow OVO Hydro review: 'She happily milked the hysteria'

For all its provocative title, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft tour is suitably named for the impact and dynamic of the show which took place entirely in the round – or in the rectangle, really – with her bandmates corralled in sunken stages while Eilish worked every inch of available space.

With additional projections onto the surface of the stage and around a suspended canopy, and pyro close enough to singe the drummer’s eyebrows, this was the kind of audacious production set-up more usually favoured by veteran stadium supergroups.

She may still be in her early twenties, but Eilish is already a multiple award winner and everything about the performance testified to her confidence, as she happily milked the hysteria of her fans and brought them in closer with some handheld camera shots of herself and fellow musicians during the irresistibly bouncy Bad Guy.

At times, the audibility of her lyrics suffered in the bass boom barrage of the early part of the set but Eilish was never without her 13,000 backing singers, who were particularly on point with the counter vocal lines on Wildflower. She appealed successfully for quiet in order to live loop the opening plainsong harmony of When the Party’s Over and lay supine on the stage, creating another intimate moment in an enormous show.

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Party bangers such as her Charli XCX collaboration Guess were interspersed with pretty ballads. Sometimes she went in hard and soft in the same song. Bury a Friend opened with electro fuzz funk synths and thundering drums but settled into a brooding gothic atmosphere. Tremulous torch song The Greatest ended on a soaring high. Happier Than Ever tapped into retro rapture before she strapped on a guitar and unleashed the sturm und drang angst. Little wonder that a mere stroke of the piano during Blue could unleash a contagious wave of “love you Billie” declarations from the crowd.