“This is the best welcome home ever,” Dua Lipa says a few songs into her world tour’s first UK show.
“We’ve waited so long to put this show on. We’ve rescheduled and rescheduled, and now we’re here.”
Moments before, the 26-year-old went down the catwalk of her colossal stage, slowly raised her hands in the air as she basked in the adoration of 21,000 fans who had waited two years to see her at Manchester’s AO Arena.
This was no ordinary pop concert; this was a reunion.
We need to rewind a little for context. The Future Nostalgia tour was announced in December 2019 in response to reports of a new, potentially lethal virus emerging from China.
By the time Dua’s second album (also titled Future Nostalgia) was released the following March, the world had been placed under lockdown and the tour had been canceled.
The singer was concerned about releasing an album of upbeat dance-pop during a time of distress.
“I’m not sure whether I’m even doing the right thing,” she told followers during a sobbing Instagram live, “but I believe that what we most need right now is music, joy, and an attempt to see the light.”
Her intuition was correct.
Rather of reminding us of what we’d lost, the record envisioned a future in which we’d once again be pushed against one another, singing these songs in sweat-soaked harmony. Or, in Dua’s own words, she had a “premonition that we would fall into a rhythm where the music would never stop” – and Future Nostalgia became the year’s most-streamed album.
Nonetheless, Covid limitations harmed her tour. It was postponed and rescheduled three times, requiring Dua to find creative methods to keep her music alive – a remix album, a breathtaking live webcast, and a steady trickle of new songs, including the chart-topping Elton John duet Cold Heart.
While anticipation grew for the concerts, the scream that greeted the star on Friday night was an odd mix of exhilaration and relief.
Dua began the event with Hot Streak’s 1980s breakdance song Body Work (“music causes you to lose control”), signaling her intention to celebrate the dancefloor’s abandonment.
She took the stage in an explosive pink Balenciaga corset bodice to the bubbly synth groove of Physical, throwing shapes at a ballet barre before romping down the runway and including some 80s-inspired aerobics movements.
For the following 40 minutes, the actress barely slowed down as she blasted through her biggest hits – New Rules, Break My Heart, Love Again, and Be The One – surrounded by 12 tireless dancers.
The production was refreshingly understated for a pop event, focusing attention on Dua’s superb vocals and enabling the band to stretch out her songs for maximum dancing effect.
Break My Heart was combined with Justice’s Dance, while Hallucinate used parts from Daft Punk’s Technologic. Even the female empowerment ballad Boys Will Be Boys was transformed into a clattering carnival remix that featured a sample from Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl.
It’s a strategy Dua learned from Madonna: inserting her songs directly into the pop canon while simultaneously establishing her control. In less capable hands, it would be an exercise in hubris, but Future Nostalgia’s platinum-plated classics weathered the comparisons.
The choreography, which drew on decades of dance history, was equally as deft. In New Rules, an umbrella routine inspired by Gene Kelly was included, while Cool had Dua being orbited by two roller-disco skaters.
Charm La’Donna, who worked on this year’s Super Bowl half-time performance, riffed on Bob Fosse’s chair routines during Hallucinate and infused the dance song Electricity with New York Warehouse overtones. She even tossed in a touch of hokey-cokey at one point.
However, the masterstroke came at the conclusion, when Dua reproduced the infamous terrible hip-wiggling technique that sparked a “Dua can’t dance” meme in 2019. (“I adore her lack of vitality,” one witness said. “Go girl, leave us alone”).
This time, she amplified it, demonstrating not only her stagecraft refinement, but also her capacity for self-parody.
The show could have used a little more of that wit. The only other peek of the star’s eccentric side came in the form of a gigantic inflatable lobster during We’re Good (a throwback to the music video that would take too long to explain here).
However, the Future Nostalgia tour is not intended to be amusing. It’s about commemorating the moment Dua Lipa truly blossomed as a music star.
Since 2019, she has developed into a commanding, confident performer capable of casually dropping a massive smash like New Rules two songs into her performance, secure in the knowledge that her audience is familiar with a dozen previous hits.
For Friday’s finale, she wore a Thierry Mugler catsuit that was embroidered with 120,000 crystals, transforming her into a human glitterball as she soared above the audience singing Levitating. Back on the ground, she whipped her hair wildly in time with Future Nostalgia’s title track, before taking a victory lap around Don’t Start Now’s disco-funk.
For the second time in a row, the supporters drowned her out… almost as if they’d spent the lockdown memorizing the lines and were now getting the chance to act out their ideal. Dua was going through the same thing up on stage.
She performed a complete 180, baby. And take a look at where she eventually ended up.
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Physical
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New Rules
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Love Again
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Cool
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Pretty Please
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Break My Heart
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Be The One
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We’re Good
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Good In Bed
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Fever
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Boys Will Be Boys
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Club Future Nostalgia
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One Kiss
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Electricity
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Hallucinate
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Cold Heart
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Levitating
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Future Nostalgia
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Don’t Start Now