Surrounded by white button-ups and duct-taped chests referencing her recent music videos, thousands gathered at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley to praise the Lorde. Touring her latest album Virgin, the Ultrasound Tour welcomed vulnerability—ushering in a new intimacy and rawness I hadn’t experienced before. Although I attended the show in my 20-year-old state of mind, the person I was dancing for was the 13-year-old version of me.
Lorde has been the soundtrack to my adolescence. Each phase of my life has been marked by a Lorde album that perfectly encapsulated how I’ve changed—and how I’ve stayed the same. She was there with Pure Heroine when I was 13, yearning for belonging. She soundtracked my first heartbreak at 15 with Melodrama. She guided me through self-love with Solar Power. And now, as a college student emerging into my own voice, she’s back with Virgin.
Lorde stepped into a beaming spotlight for the opening track, “Hammer.” I could barely see her until the light struck her perfectly—and I felt a flutter in my chest. Maybe it was my mind and body realizing that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I first listened to “Hammer” the day it dropped, while volunteering at a summer camp. I raced down a hill to find cell service so I could download it, then blasted it on a giant speaker. I knew instantly that this album would break me apart in the best way possible—and hearing it live confirmed it.
Her live vocals were mesmerizing—unafraid to scream, to exhale the weight of her lyrics. As she moved wildly and carelessly across the stage, I felt pulled into the openness she embraced. It didn’t feel like she was performing for us, but with us, welcoming the audience into the inner lining of her mind.
“If I’m lucky, a song stops being mine and starts to belong to you,” Lorde said.
With the Melodrama album cover taped to my wall growing up, I spent years screaming her lyrics in the car the second I got my license—always dreaming of what it would be like to hear “Supercut” live.
“Sometimes I get this feeling like I’m stuck inside a memory, and then it will play and play and I can’t seem to make it stop. Sometimes I think I like it that way,” she said, introducing “Supercut.”
The song explores how, when we replay moments from the past, we tend to romanticize the good parts and blur the rest. During the song’s climax, Lorde ran full-force on a treadmill, belting,
“’Cause in my head I do everything right / When you call I’ll forgive and not fight…” The visual was genius—the treadmill symbolizing our endless, futile sprint toward a feeling that no longer exists.
Lorde was joined by two background dancers who, if you looked closely, told the stories she sang. My favorite of their performances came during “Broken Glass,” from Virgin. The rawness of the song—about battling an eating disorder and feeling like a stranger in your own body—was magnified onstage. One dancer struggled to eat an apple until they finally devoured it, while beside them, Lorde tightened her belt tighter and tighter until the final verse, when she ripped it off and hurled it across the stage. These subtle choices breathed life into the song.
Close
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
Lorde performs at her Ultrasound Tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on October 19, 2025.
I was ecstatic when “No Better,” a single she wrote at 15, appeared on the setlist. Not performed since 2014, the song lit up the stage along with her giddy, childlike smile—as if she too wanted to remember that those parts of herself still exist at 28.
“I play some weird songs on this tour because you can’t leave anything behind, including the parts of yourself that were 15 and kind of embarrassing. They’re all coming with us, baby,” she said, introducing “No Better.”
“Liability” has held my hand through some of my most heart-wrenching moments. Tears slipped down my face as she sang it live. The song—about feeling like too much for everyone—has always felt like an extension of myself. Lorde performed it as a healed woman; I listened as one still healing. It was a beautiful full-circle moment. I remember thinking I would leave this memory with claw marks, desperate to hold on to the freedom of those three minutes.
Pull Quote
“Liability” has held my hand through some of my most heart-wrenching moments. Tears slipped down my face as she sang it live.
Throughout the night, I felt my younger self calling for my attention, a feeling that peaked during the closer, “Ribs,” from Pure Heroine. As the crowd jumped and shouted together, I was flooded with memories of driving around empty streets at night with my childhood friends, wishing life would slow down. Love vibrated through the entire theater.
Despite attending the concert alone, I didn’t feel lonely. I was surrounded by my past selves—and by thousands of people doing the same. Driving home, my eyeliner smudged and my voice hoarse, I sat with one thought: I’m endlessly grateful that I never grew out of the music I loved at 13.
Noelle Doblado is a student journalist and Editor in Chief of Cal Poly Humboldt’s bilingual newspaper, El Leñador.