Don’t ask Hilary Duff about “The Math.” The centerpiece of 2003’s Metamorphosis, it’s a cheeky rocker that conveys a frustrating relationship through mathematical terms — there are minus signs, plus signs, and even a reference to *69, the ye olde service code for a call return. Thinking about it nearly 25 years later, the 38-year-old musician and actress finds it a little cringe. “I literally die inside every time,” she told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “Those lyrics? I’m ashamed.” As her husband and collaborator Matthew Koma puts it: “That’s been our inside joke since day one. We’re like, ‘All right, play ‘The Math’ three times in the set!”
Except that totally happened — sadly not three times, just once — at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Aug. 6. Duff, on tour behind her fantastic new album Luck … or Something, unearthed the fan favorite, performing it for the first time since 2006. “I hope you remember the words to this song,” she told the crowd. “I hope I remember the words to this song.” (Don’t worry, she did.)
Luck … or Something marks Duff’s first new album in over a decade, after 2015’s Breathe In. Breathe Out. Her massive Lucky Me World Tour plays in the U.S. through August, before she heads overseas through the fall — and resumes again early next year. Here are six reasons you should see her right now.
It’s Basically a Y2K-Themed Party
From Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet Tour to the western magic that was Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter run, concert dressing has never been more popular — and the Lucky Me Tour is no exception. Fans pay homage to Duff by wearing memorable outfits across her career. Sam Montgomery’s pancake batter-covered pink apron over her white tulle dress in A Cinderella Story? Check. Lizzie McGuire’s pink tank, blue capris, and orange platform sandals? Check. That pink camo uniform from Cadet Kelly? Check. Isabella’s lime-green fit and headset mic from the “What Dreams Are Made Of” scene in The Lizzie McGuire Movie? Sing to me, Paolo!
If you don’t have these specific outfits, a general Y2K style will do just fine. Walking around the venue, you’ll find approximately 472 butterfly hair clips, 203 sequined skirts, and so many space buns you’ll feel like you’re on another planet. Feeling old? We’re right there with you.
The Set Will Transport You Straight to 2003
“The Math” aside, Duff is seemingly proud of her catalog, and she dips her toes into all five of her albums (we’re excluding her 2002 Christmas album Santa Claus Lane, but just know we’d happily welcome her rocking cover of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” whenever she’s ready). It’s pure euphoria to scream and sob along to songs like “Wake Up,” “So Yesterday,” and “Anywhere But Here” (the latter of which Duff recently unleashed from the vault for the first time since 2006). And she’s perfectly happy to lean into the nostalgia.
“For me, this looks like getting to uncover this part of myself from a long time ago, who is still in there, who needs love and needs to be let out every once in a while,” she told the crowd at Madison Square Garden. “And then this other side of me who like, faced the world and had children and has gone through a lot of shit.”
She Brings Out Surprise Guests
At every show on tour, Duff reaches into a mini fridge onstage and pulls out a beverage — typically orange wine or an Aperol Spritz. But in Nashville on July 30, she found it empty. Suddenly, Kelsea Ballerini arrived holding a to-go container of food. “Well, Hil, we’ve gotten to put a hole in the bottle in your neck of the woods,” she told Duff. “But we’ve never gotten to have Nashville hot chicken in our neck of the woods together. So I felt like it was time.” The two musicians sat on Duff’s couch, tasting chicken, pickles, and bread pudding, before Duff launched into “Why Not.”
At MSG on Aug. 5, Duff wore a vintage Good Charlotte t-shirt, then welcomed the band’s Joel (whom she dated back in the day), and Benji Madden onstage. “Can you please give the warmest welcome to my friends Good Charlotte?” she asked the crowd, before the trio tore through a performance of their 2003 pop-punk hit “The Anthem.”
That same evening, Duff told the crowd about a scare her family had earlier that day. “My kids are here tonight,” she told the crowd. “I can’t believe I get to show them this. We were in the ER this morning, getting some stitches for my five-year-old. She’s fine, it’s all good. But it’s very our family-coded that I would be playing my first night at MSG and also be in the emergency room, getting my kid stitched up.” The following night, she recruited her three daughters — Banks, Mae, and Townes — onstage for a pizza party. “Listen, we also like pizza in L.A.!” she joked.
Her New Songs Rule, Too
Duff’s comeback tour may be nostalgia-heavy, but don’t sleep on Luck … or Something. She plays a majority of the album, from the lead single “Mature” to hypnotic synth-pop highlights like “You, From the Honeymoon,” “Roommates,” and “Future Tripping Out.” It’s an honest look at her life now, decades after child stardom, as she gets vulnerable about motherhood, marriage, and how she looks back on it all.
“For you guys to get behind Luck… or Something and get behind me, and come here and scream-sing all the new songs to me?” she told the crowd during the first night at MSG. “It really means so much to me as an artist, as a person.”
She Nods to Her Dedicated LGBTQ+ Fanbase
At the Garden, fans were seen wearing t-shirts sporting quotes from Duff’s 2008 Think Before You Speak campaign, when she filmed a PSA to call out anti-LGBTQ+ bullying (“It’s insulting,” she tells two teens describing a piece of clothing as “gay”). And when she performed “With Love,” she brought on RuPaul’s Drag Race icons Luxx Noir London, Aquaria, and Crystal Envy to assist her with the viral dance. That night, Duff thanked her LGBTQ+ fanbase that “never left” her.
“It took me a little while to find peace with it, and the humor in it,” Duff said of the “With Love” dance. “Obviously, it’s silly and embarrassing. But the fact that people across the whole entire world take the time to learn a dance and make a costume and post it on the internet, I’m obsessed with it. It took me getting to 38 to be like, ‘Oh, I get this. I get this and I love it, and I’m here for it.’”
She’s Not Above Revisiting The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Earlier this year in London, during her first performance since 2015, Duff closed with “What Dreams Are Made Of” from 2003’s The Lizzie McGuire Movie. It was her first time ever performing the Disney track — which she recorded when she was just 14 — and she’s kept it in the set list ever since, along with “Why Not,” also from the Italian adventure film. Consider this our official plea to have more Lizzie McGuire material — maybe “I Can’t Wait,” from the show’s official soundtrack? She can also duet with her pal Mandy Moore, who contributed “Walk Me Home” on that same album. Basically, we need all the Outfit Repeater moments we can get.
“To lean on the old songs and celebrate and champion how we first met, it’s a dream,” Duff told MSG. “And I don’t know if I’ll ever have another moment quite like this, or another summer quite like this. But you guys have made it incredibly special for me.”
