festival debut), were undeniably a downgrade.Fans of “The Nutcracker” know her as Mother Ginger, one of many characters in the Land of Sweets.
They ultimately dropped out, and their replacements on Saturday, the Marias and Abby Roberts (making her U.S. When Halsey’s ultimately doomed tour was announced in 2020, Chvrches and Omar Apollo were the opening acts. Halsey has changed dramatically in those four years, becoming more outspoken, more daring, more artistically assured.Īnd they, and we, are all the better for it. And they talked about how before Saturday’s Summerfest show they looked back at photos of their last Summerfest performance, where they wore a shimmering leotard, back in 2018 - confessing that they didn’t even recognize that person anymore. Halsey also referenced the song they wrote that mentioned Milwaukee, “929,” although they never sang it. “And how do I feel lost when I’m never left unfound.” Escaping into Kate Bush's songĪs integral as intense revelations were to the power of Halsey’s performance, there were entertaining, escapist moments as well Saturday night.ĭuring their performance of the Marshmallo collaboration “Be Kind,” Halsey did a remarkable, Picasso-like drawing as they sang, which would be auctioned off to raise money for charity.Īnd after that blood-boiling “Nightmare” performance, Halsey tapped into the zeitgeist in a completely different fashion - with a riveting cover of Kate Bush’s 1985 classic “Running Up The Hill,” which has found new popularity on the soundtrack of the latest season of “Stranger Things.” “Why do I feel helpless when there’s tons of help around,” Halsey asked. “I toss and turn at night and hope it’s not a disease that’s hereditary,” Halsey said, referencing their bipolar disorder, and worries that their son, too, will have mental health struggles. “I’m a problem.”Īs defiant as Halsey was Saturday, they were also touchingly vulnerable - especially during some pre-recorded poems they wrote between chapters in the show, one of which played over footage of Halsey curled up in a ball naked in a bathtub, addressing their fears of motherhood. “I am not a martyr,” they sang defiantly during the chorus.
“I am glad I met the Devil ‘cause he showed me I was weak.”īy show’s end, Halsey was practically a force of nature, closing the two-hour set with the most powerful track on “Power,” “I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God.” On the screen behind Halsey and their three-piece band was footage of Halsey in a plastic bathing suit, screaming silently, covered in blood - the fury on their face turning into an icy resolve. “Well that should teach a man to mess with me,” Halsey sang eerily. “And they said that boys would be boys, but they were wrong,” Halsey sang Saturday atop a scaffold hovering over the stage, for the ominous album and show opener “The Tradition.”Īround the show’s midway point, for “I Want Power” standout “The Lighthouse,” Halsey symbolically came for their revenge against the patriarchy, depicted as a sea monster in a bathtub on the stage’s big screen. This tour - coming two years after an ultimately canceled run behind “Manic” that was supposed to stop at Summerfest in 2020 - is in support of another new album, last year’s “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” made in collaboration with producers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and sharing Nine Inch Nails’ seething fury in its DNA.
It wasn’t the only way Halsey was completely open and unflinching. The work is ours and we have to do it now.”Īnd from there, Halsey led a call and response of “My body, my choice,” their voice, and the voice of their fans, getting louder, angrier, more determined with each repetition. “Don’t wait for revolutionaries to change the world. “The overturning of Roe is a catastrophic attack on bodily autonomy (and) will only encourage more dangerous legislation, impacting vulnerable communities the most,” the screen read. “Abortion is health care and a human right,” the screen flashed, all the letters capitalized, before the song reached its climax.
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