I took Rhea, Lara and two of their friends to a Billie Eilish concert a few weeks ago. We all reflected on the experience.
Isolde: What was surprising about the concert?
Rhea: Getting the tickets.
Lara: I realized I was gonna go when I looked at the tickets, cause I wanted to see where Rhea was going to sit and I saw that she had four tickets.
Mum said I could invite someone and I thought about who to invite. I wanted to invite Chloe but mum said I had to choose someone who really liked Billie Eilish so I asked Kate, but her mum said no. So I asked Chloe and her parents said yes.
Isolde: I picked them all up at lunchtime from their schools and we drove to Sydney.
Rhea: It would’ve been fun if mum had come but it was good that Chloe did. If Hannah’s mum had taken us, Lara probably would have sat with her because Hannah and I were going together.
Rhea: There’re some things I would have done differently. We should have arrived earlier to see her opener and do more stuff, and have more time. We got there about 10 minutes before she started. We could have checked out each others’ seats.
Isolde: The pub we stayed at was clean, but the hallway and rooms smelt of urine. When we passed the men’s bathroom the night we arrived, Hannah saw a naked man in there. The girls got ready in the big bedroom we were all sharing.
Lara: We got there kind of late and I think we should have gotten picked up sooner but we got there at 5. We got dressed and Hannah did my hair with ribbons cause I tried and it looked like shit. We took some photos on Chloe’s old camera.
Lara: We missed the opener and got dinner which was nachos to share and we got water, ice-cream and churros. Then we went inside and took some pictures. There were a bunch of arches with advertising for her new perfume and we took pictures there. Then we went upstairs to where our entrance was, we went to a random one so we could take pictures because we were at different entrances. There was about 20 minutes before she started and some songs were playing, and someone started a Mexican wave. Then there were a few more songs then the intro started, which was actually very good because it was a bunch of her music and flashing lights and stuff, and when people caught a glimpse of her they started yelling.
Rhea: She started with Chihiro. It was really loud. It was so fun!
Lara: There’s one entrance where she jumps up really high.
Rhea: I sang the whole time.
Lara: NDA was my favourite song that she played.
Isolde: What does NDA stand for?
Lara: Everyone knows what an NDA is.
Rhea: There were girls sitting near us that were about 12 years old that were screaming at the start. Everyone was.
Lara: There was a girl who looked about 8 sitting near us with her sister, she didn’t really know the songs.
The lights made it more fun. What else do you want me to say? I sang all the songs.
Rhea: The light was really good. My favourite song for the performance was Guess or Bury a Friend. I sang the whole time.
Rhea: After the concert we ran down to the second floor to get confetti and there were people who were on the floor passing confetti up and the people working on the floor passed some up. We got three pieces each, and when we ran down to the floor to get more confetti, the security guards were annoying and turned people back. After we got the confetti we went to the merch line outside and found Chloe and Lara, and found mum. And then we went to Maccas. The vanilla coke was so good.
Lara: The room where we stayed was really fun, we pushed the beds together. We got Maccas and came back at 11. We stayed up posting for a bit then mum told us to go to bed at about 1.
Rhea: When we got back I helped Hannah make her Instagram post about it. We shared all the photos with each other.
Rhea: Do you know what this song is about? It’s about her stalker who broke into her parents’ house, and this is from his perspective.
Isolde: I suggested we get brunch at a diner on the road. I used the word ‘diner’ and the girls thought it was a reference to the Billie Eilish song Diner, but I just called it that as it seemed to describe what I was looking for.
Lara: We went out for breakfast at a diner. When we were driving back we were wearing the Billie Eilish merch we bought. We were talking in the car and listening to the set list. We opened the skylight and took some pictures.
Isolde: How would you sum up the concert?
Rhea: Fun.
Isolde: How would you sum up the concert?
Lara: I’m not doing that.
Isolde: Rhea said ‘fun.’
Lara: Yeah OK. Fun.
