Lorde brought the raw intensity of her Ultrasound World Tour to Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on Saturday (Oct.18), capping off a night of catharsis with special guest Charli XCX and their confessional Brat remix.
The iconic duo previously performed their remix of “Girl, So Confusing” during Charli and Troye Sivan’s Sweat Tour stop at New York’s Madison Square Garden last September, as well as during Charli’s Coachella set in April. But this was the first time that Lorde was in the driver’s seat, inviting out Charli during her encore set at the Forum.
“Can I trust you?” Lorde asked the crowd from a b-stage in the middle of the 18,000-person capacity arena before pulling out a Sharpie and writing “GIRL” on her palm. The audience immediately understood the significance of that single word, going wild as Lorde’s hand was projected on screen and the familiar hook of “Girl, So Confusing” began to play alongside teaser shots of Charli.
The Brat star then arrived, making her way across the floor of the Forum while powerfully delivering her opening verse about the strains of female friendship. Lorde writhed and danced on the b-stage and then launched into her own verse, recorded for the song’s viral remix during the brat-green summer of 2024.
“Well honestly I was speechless/ When I woke up to your voice note/ You told me how you’ve been feeling,” Lorde sang before giving the microphone to the audience to scream the song’s iconic tag line, “Let’s work it out on the remix.” And work it out they did, with Charli finally joining Lorde on stage as her friend concluded the confessional verse about body image and the industry’s obsession with comparing two women who’ve “got the same hair.”
Lorde and Charli ended the duet together, joyously dancing and swinging their admittedly very similar long, dark curls in a moment of intense catharsis for both the artists and their raucous fans. They embraced, and Charli said goodbye so Lorde could end her show one-on-one with the audience during the fan favorite “Ribs.”
The encore was a perfect conclusion to Lorde’s Ultrasound set, a raw and moody tour de force in which the 28-year-old New Zealand native shows off her 2025 pop return Virgin while also diving into her discography of over a decade with songs off Pure Heroine (2013), Melodrama (2017) and Solar Power (2021).
“Things have gotten very raw and very real for me in the last couple years. I’m really in pursuit of a very essential version of myself,” Lorde told the crowd in L.A. on Saturday night before performing “Liability,” a devastating ballad off Melodrama. “I try as hard as I can to peel away the layers and excavate a truth, a truth a truth.”
Lorde’s peeled-away truth came through in her full-throated vocal performance set against a minimalist stage set. Early on, she pulled the belt off her jeans while singing about an eating disorder on the Virgin track “Broken Glass.” Later, she sprinted barefoot on a treadmill and belted out “Supercut,” the Melodrama song about trying to rewrite a memory in one’s head.
But for Lorde, telling the truth also meant addressing today’s political moment; she flashed lights in the colors of the Palestinian flag during the Pure Heroine hit “Team,” and she fittingly mentioned while singing her 2013 breakout single “Royals” that Saturday was “No Kings Day,” a national day of protest against the Trump administration.
“We are not okay,” Lorde told the audience during her “Liability” speech. “We are sick, and we need to get well. It’s urgent. And I don’t have answers, obviously, but I believe that this many people getting together on a Saturday night and experiencing this shared agony and ecstasy, falling apart with friends and loved ones and strangers in a room, that’s the strongest medicine we have.”
