Concert Review: Lorde at ACL Weekend 1
The New Zealand singer-songwriter returned to Austin City Limits 12 years after her debut at age 17.
Written by Caroline McConnico
Photos courtesy of Ashley Osborn
There’s something about certain live shows that feels deeply intimate. For a few hours, the crowd, the performer, and the songs become part of something that has always felt personal. You’re a teenager dancing alone in your bedroom again, screaming lyrics you once believed were written specifically for you. On Saturday, Lorde brought that childhood bedroom to the T-Mobile stage at ACL.
Her 83-minute set opened with a shortened version of "Royals," giving the crowd a nostalgic performance and reminding everyone of Lorde’s beginnings 13 years ago. The sentimental moment carried over into the present with “What Was That,” the lead single from her most recent album, Virgin. The powerful lyrics harken back to how she started as a teenager destined for stardom: “Since I was seventeen, I gave you everything / Now we wake from a dream, well, baby, what was that?”
Continuing with more mature themes, “Broken Glass” showed her evolution from a once-young and unsure singer-songwriter to a looser, more eclectic version of herself. “Perfect Places” served as the perfect fourth song, bringing together all of her artistic phases into one place: the ACL stage.
“Shapeshifter” heralded a darker, more hypnotic energy to the set, with Lorde leaning into the song’s strange, almost otherworldly atmosphere. Then came “Buzzcut Season,” pulling the crowd back into the hazy nostalgia of Pure Heroine. Hearing the song live more than a decade after its release made its themes of escaping reality and holding onto fleeting moments feel like revisiting a memory in real time. Lorde then jumped right into “Favourite Daughter,” keeping the introspective streak going, confronting the expectations of being loved, watched, and understood.
After climbing up to a floating pillar, Lorde began singing the opening lines of “The Louvre,” one of her most vulnerable songs about having a crush and falling head over heels for someone. The song sent a hush through the crowd as she gave everything to the lyrics: “I am your sweetheart psychopathic crush / Drink up your movements, still I can't get enough / I overthink your punctuation use / Not my fault, just a thing that my mind do.”
“Current Affairs” and “Hard Feelings” brought the set into more complex territory, pairing the rush of love with the mess that follows. “Oceanic Feelings” slowed things down as the only feature from Lorde’s third studio album Solar Power, creating a softer, more reflective moment before “Liability” stripped everything back. “Liability” was one of the night’s most intimate moments, with Lorde letting the song’s loneliness hang over the crowd. “Hammer” and “Supercut” quickly turned that sadness into movement, before “Team” gave the crowd another chance to scream along to one of Lorde’s defining anthems.
The performance was theatrical without ever feeling distant. During “Man of the Year,” she rose above the stage, driving her microphone stand toward her chest in a dramatic imitation of piercing her own heart, physically representing the song's tension between independence and the pain that can come with choosing yourself.
The energy flowed seamlessly throughout the set, leaving fans surging with excitement when the opening bars of Charli XCX’s “Girl, so confusing” blasted from the stage. Although Charli herself didn’t come out for the song, Lorde sang her parts excellently, giving a shoutout to her “bitch” and carelessly dragging a cigarette.
Lorde kept the same swagger as she dove straight into “Green Light,” sending Zilker Park into a dancing fit under the fittingly fluorescent stage lighting.
As she performed “David,” a gut wrenching song about finding autonomy, a massive banner unfurled above the muddy crowd, reading “I don’t belong to anyone” alongside the years 2013 and 2026. These years cap off her career to date, marking her time as a fiercely independent and passionate artist. The juxtaposition felt deliberate: the girl who once sang “Royals” was now standing beneath a declaration that she belonged only to herself.
Before “Ribs,” she offered the crowd a string of reminders to live fully: “make art, swim, dance, love, have sex, experiment and, above all, keep moving.” Then she climbed down from the stage and ventured into the crowd, performing the final song among the people who had spent the night singing her words back to her.
This closing track has always carried the ache of growing up, but surrounded by a sea of fans, it became something bigger. Lorde wasn’t the teenager in the bedroom anymore, and neither were the people in the crowd. For a few minutes, everyone was a part of something entirely singular.