Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ
Last night, Lily Allen strolled on stage at the Electric Factory holding a grimacing Emoji pillow over her face and all I could think was “Yes. YES. This was worth the wait.” To backtrack a bit, for me (and I suspect many of her fans) Lily Allen was the first and only pop-star I fell for post-angst-filled adolescence and now finally seeing her live has cemented my place as a disciple of Sheezus. Lily appeals to the anxious, questioning, and sarcastic because her discography is by turns anxious, questioning, and sarcastic. Last night, the set list tactfully staggered the best of her back catalog between singles off of her new album Sheezus. The songs from Alright, Still and It’s Not Me, It’s You, despite their late-Aughts vintage, still resonate with her audience, which, judging by the crowd at the Factory, is mostly female twenty-somethings and gay couples. We empathize with Lily’s worries in “22” and “Who’d Have Known,” the girls cheered in agreement with “Not Fair,” and everybody let out their giddy aggression in the brilliant choice of closing song “Fuck You.” Her old hits not only still connect with her fans but she transitions several of them into remixes that lead into her newer hits like “URL Badman” and “L8 Cmmr.” I loved this interplay between her former celebration of the single life and her current domestic bliss, repped onstage with giant light-up baby bottles. After her hour-long set, Lily strutted back onstage for the encore in an American flag cat-suit with her dancers in tow wearing dog masks. Smirking as always, like she knows that we know she’s been holding out on us and launches into “Hard Out Here (For A Bitch).” It was the perfect ending for an amazing show that proved Lily Allen is still makes pure pop for post-angst people. — STEPHANIE SHAMP