Ellie Goulding
Photos by Doug Peters
By Leah Victoria
Artist: Ellie Goulding
Date / Venue: Saturday October 1st, 2016 - Vector Arena, Auckland
Auckland’s Vector Arena filled to the brim last night with thousands of kiwi fans excited to catch the end of Ellie Goulding’s third headlining world tour Delirium.
The night began without delay with an angelic image of the British star appearing on the big screen doused in white light. With surrounding beats intensifying, the image flashes back and forth with a less angelic and much more sexy vision of her wearing black and staring wantonly into the camera giving a sense of angel versus devil.
The glittering gold drapes were pulled back by two of her 3 accompanying male dancers and Ellie appears with a burst of energy and black Doc Martens that we love her for! Diving straight into catchy track Aftertaste from her third studio album Delirium the packed out venue gave her a loud welcome.
Accompanied by 3 gorgeous ladies providing the all important backing vocals, 3 fit and very bendy male dancers/acrobats, a wonderful and tight full band, and Ellie herself bouncing and spinning across the stage, there wasn’t a dull moment or second of downtime even during her two costume changes!
I thought the brightly coloured lycra with a definite 80’s vibe was an interesting choice of stagewear, until I soon noticed the effects it was causing on the digital backdrop behind her! Neon outlines of Ellie and her whole squad appeared like some kind of intergalactic shadow show at the back of the stage which was really cool to watch as they ran through a track from the new album Delirium, Keep On Dancing.
Ellie performed her newest tracks Something In The Way You Move, a beautiful and melodic acoustic version of Devotion and Still Falling For You from the recent Bridget Jones sequel soundtrack, along with a great mix of older favourites such as You My Everything and Explosions from her 2012 album Halcyon.
She spoke briefly between songs to let us know how shy she was feeling tonight! Apparently such good audiences make her feel a little self conscious, but if she hadn’t told us that we would never have guessed it! Her stage presence was huge and she totally owned every square inch of it!
Army was an emotional one! Appearing bare foot in a beautiful summery white dress “I can normally talk about this song, but I can’t tonight because I’m too shy! I’ll just say that it’s about my best friend!” as she donned the kiwi flag she was gifted at her Christchurch show and instamatic photographs of her with her right hand lady played out on the screen along with shots of tonight’s crowd, indicating that along with her friend and her fans, she feels invincible!
I noticed there wasn’t a whole lot of movement in the crowd for the first half of the performance, and it felt like the crowd were just utterly engrossed by the happenings on stage! Until she got stuck into Burn! It was like the crowd suddenly awoke from a hypnotic daze and realized they were watching Ellie Goulding perform live and suddenly the whole house were up on their feet and bouncing!
It wasn’t a night full of cell phones in the air as I have experienced with a slightly younger demographic at recent shows, but of course they were dotted about the arena. She asked that if you had a light, that you shine it so she could “Self indulgently” get a feel for the size of the crowd, and then Vector lit up like a massive Santa’s Grotto! Once she was made to feel even more shy by the grand size of her audience, she asked that everyone put away the cameras and cell phones and immerse themselves in her final performance of Anything Can Happen. Everyone obliged and it was just lovely!!
She left the stage and a quiet realisation of the end occurred followed by a tumultuous demand for an encore! She burst back onto the stage with massive synths and crashing drums to end the night with Love Me Like You Do, joined by rainbow stripes and colourful confetti for a spectacular close!
There was nothing but smiles as fans filtered out of the venue tonight! Ellie gave us an absolute superb night which I thoroughly enjoyed! I really hope she comes back again soon, she will be warmly welcomed for sure!