Words / Bri Ng Schwartz
Photos / Lauren Nakao Winn
As New York’s elder emos piled into Queen’s Forest Hills Stadium for night one of The Hayley Williams Show, a friend who accompanied me noted that she hadn’t seen this much primary colored hair and piercings in one place since her teens. I replied swiftly: “This is our church.” Leading up to the show, other friends texted about the spiritual experience of blowing out our vocal cords while screaming “I’m in a band” alongside Williams during “Ice In My OJ,” the opening song to Williams’s sophomore album Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party.
The Hayley Williams Show marks the second iteration of tour dates spotlighting the Ego Death album release. While the record generated a slew of parasocial buzz due to the the suspected subject of heartbreak hits like “Parachute” and “Good Ol’ Days,” it also ushers her Millennial female fanbase from teen-angst into the darkness of a quarter-life crisis. She explores breaking generational curses as an oldest daughter with “Kill Me,” the loneliness and depression still present in adulthood in “Glum,” a love affair with antidepressants on “Mirtazapine,” and lasting effects of a years-long battle of killing one’s softness and femininity in favor of being one of the boys in “Hard.”
While the smaller shows earlier this year placed the new record at the forefront, Wednesday’s set list was balanced with songs from her 2020 solo debut, Petals For Armor and her 2021 release Flowers for Vases / Descansos. With touring plans for Petals cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Hayley’s live performances in 2022 and 2023 being Paramore-focused, the 2020 tracks made their debut on this round of the tour. Wednesday’s show presented a fully fleshed portrait of Willams: the moodier, jazz and gospel-inspired solo artist beyond the 80s synth-meets-pop punk Paramore front-woman.
With fans on a high following opening performances from genre-bending Rico Nasty and dreamy soundscapes of Magdelena Bay, anticipation built for Hayley’s headlining set. Having never been silent on politics and current events, the pre-show playlist could not have been more timely. Following the news cycle around Mackelmore’s Palestine advocacy and his dismissal from Ed Sheeran’s current tour, songs from the “Thrift Shop” hitmaker along with former tour openers Lukas Graham, FINNEAS, Aaron Rowe, and Sheeran’s former backing band Beoga blasted through the Forest Hills stadium. Call outs for a Free Palestine and condemnation of ICE are a standard at a Hayley Williams show.
Standout Ego Death track “True Believer” is a haunting love letter to Nashville’s past life pre-gentrification and a thorough analysis of Christian Nationalism, which she credits as the biggest threat to America during the performance that evening. She is joined for this part of the set by the True Believer Quartet, and transitions into Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” The shadow of her piano playing silhouette looms largely against the white backdrop. It is a ghostly sight and a memorable visual displayed throughout the show, especially during the sister-song and album title track that mentions a certain “racist country singer’s bar.”
It wouldn’t be The Hayley Williams show without Brian Robert Jones, frequent collaborator of the songstress and lead guitarist on her solo endeavors. Their collaboration spans outside of solo and Paramore performances, with his recently released Weezyana: The Louisiana Purchase Musical where Williams is featured in the cast. Throughout her live performances on this album cycle, Jones has been thrust further and further into the spotlight. His onstage synergy with Willams pull focus in the best way possible.
Williams receives a mid-show makeover, receiving a gold overlay on her eyes during “My Friend.” The set shifts seamlessly between Williams’ upbeat rock and jazz fused tracks and her slowed down angsty anthems. It also features softer, romantic ballads that stand out in the set: notably “Zissou” which brings a contrasting aquatic blue backdrop to the whites and oranges that have overtaken the stage up until that point. “Dream Girl In Shibuya” is the dreamiest part of the night, with the projection of Japan’s city-scape and phone lights providing a twinkling glow to the historic stadium.
Another undeniable character throughout the night is a robotic figure placed at the center of the stage, offering interludes through way of glitchy ads for previously mentioned Mirtazapine. In this case, the only side effect is painful expectancy, as the song itself isn’t performed until the third mention of the medication, during the encore. Once the first few chords of the song began to play, fans jumped out of their seats and remained on their feet for the rest of the show. “Brotherly Love” follows, with a dramatic curtain drop before the final chorus of the song, transcending the audience to another level of rowdy. She closes the set with “Parachute,” the first single released off of the album, bringing the stadium volume to an all time high for the night.
On my way out of the venue, I spotted a group of friends in my section wearing shirts that read “I pulled my neck at the Hayley Williams concert,” a callback to the time Hayley herself revealed that years of head banging at concerts had impacted the curvature of her neck. The strain concerts have on my body as I approach 30 is something that I think about going to every concert these days, and I find solidarity in my fellow adult concertgoers with this fact. I’m not sure if those of us who fangirled over Paramore when we were in the single digits and our preteens thought we would ever be here, witnessing the growth of Hayley Williams outside of the male-dominated genre she came up in. Nevertheless, her body of work still speaks to the universal existentialism we experience with more life under our belt.
The Hayley Williams Show will continue through North and South America, Australia and Europe deep into the new year, giving fans across the world the opportunity to experience her captivating body of solo work. Tickets are available now at https://hayleywilliams.net/tour
