Valentine’s Day comes and goes every year, and if you don’t have a special someone to share it with, the holiday of love can be pretty unmemorable—unless you choose to spend it with pop icon Dua Lipa, that is.
The ‘Future Nostalgia’ Tour is the fifth concert series from English pop artist Dua Lipa in support of her latest album “Future Nostalgia”). Originally announced in 2019, the tour was postponed several times due to COVID-19-related gathering restrictions.
These postponements only heightened my excitement to see Lipa live. The opener was recently viral artist Caroline Polachek, with hit songs like “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings.” It wasn’t until Polacheck sang the hit that I, and the rest of my friends, realized that we knew the tune from TikTok—typical. Clad in a watercolor-hued chiton-esque dress, Polachek served as a siren-sounding, goddess-like opener, perfectly preparing us for the “girlboss” energy of the rest of the night.
Eventually, the moment that the crowd was waiting for arrived. Rising from a trapdoor in the stage and shrouded in fog, Dua Lipa opened her portion of the show with a vibrant, 80s themed dance number to her song “Physical.” In a whirl of color and sound, Lipa and her dancers may as well have flown around the stage, moving as a singular unit. Lipa wowed the crowd with a plethora of hits, including “New Rules,” “One Kiss” and “Levitating.”
Honestly, my friends and I spent about 80% of the concert absolutely slack-jawed—we knew that it would be a performance to remember, full of costume changes, elaborate sets and incredible dancers, but still, it exceeded all of our expectations. She even asked a lucky someone in the audience to “be her Valentine,” only exciting the crowd even more. Dua Lipa has a natural gift for performing and an incredible stage presence, knowing all the marks to hit to achieve the maximum positive reaction from her audience.
For her encore, Dua performed yet another one of her hits, “Don’t Start Now,” whilst wearing a glittery pink cowboy hat in homage to Nashville’s country scene. With a final burst of confetti and an exit from the stage via descending trap door, Lipa left all of us in shock and honestly speechless as we exited Bridgestone.
The show definitely helped me understand what “Future Nostalgia” means (pretty sure I’m feeling it right now). I’m hoping that I can continue the tradition of spending my Valentine’s Days with pop stars, but I suppose only time will tell.
