“Are you lost enough?” Lorde, the 21-year-old New Zealand native, graced Xcel Energy with her long overdue presence at her concert on Mar. 23 at the Xcel Energy Center. The audience had not been lost, it was Lorde. When she toured in 2013-2014, she traveled to New York, California, and most other popular concert locations in the United States. All, except for Minnesota.

She thrust her electro-pop concert to fruition with her song “Sober” and “broadcasted the boom boom boom” with “Homemade Dynamite.” Crowds upon crowds of concert-goers were ecstatic. Whimsical backup dancers with flowing outfits and tennis shoes punctuated Lorde’s melodious vocals. Lorde has a reputation for a uniquely authentic dance style, but what shone was just her giggly self-jumping in her sneakers and flipping her unadorned shoulder length hair. This authenticity, a trope for Lorde, intermingled crowd engagement and invited for a deepening appreciation of her music.

Although the formal title of her world tour is Melodrama, Lorde provoked nostalgia with her old songs from her previous album, Pure Heroine. The likes of rhythmic gems like “Buzzcut Season,” “400 Lux,” “Ribs,” “Team,” and of course, “Royals” fulfilled audience anticipation and provided a meaningful throwback.

While her performances exuded more of an artful vibe than a pure concert one, her show heavily relied upon six back up dancers. Their movement was majorly independent of Lorde’s, yet she occasionally jumped in with cute and giddily danced routines. Her exaggeration, coupled with full-length skirts (or deceiving pants), kept Lorde visually captivating. Likewise, dancers held her up while she sang, or she traveled through a clear rectangular box while her dancers would expressively move around her. It felt like a serenade of Lorde’s artistry, a testament to her visionary influence.

But what really stood out was her salute to Prince, or as she called him, “His Royal Badness.” She did not simply light the stage in purple and sing one of his famed songs. No. She spoke of an anecdote with the Minnesota icon when at the Golden Globes, followed by her rendition of “I Would Die 4 U.”

The slower songs were not finished after this tribute, however. She remained on the lifted part of the stage, with legs dangling and mouth giggling, to sing her reflective song, “Writer in the Dark.” After, she called for Tove Styrke, 25-year-old Swedish pop star who had been on tour with Lorde, to sit next to her on stage. Lorde gave a heartfelt message about how this would be Styrke’s last day in the Melodrama tour, and they dueted “Hang With Me,” a Swedish pop song by Robyn of Sweden. The candidness of this moment awed the crowd. It is instances like these that make Lorde so lovable.

With one more slow song to go, Lorde sang her famed “Liability,” an emotional ballad about feeling like too much for someone. She let the stadium echo her lyrics, which seemed to almost bring her to genuine tears.

Lorde is an innovative pop sensation. Yet her work has always been more subdued, and more lyric based. It is her words that accentuate her lovely performances, not the other way around. Her iridescent shimmering presence fills whatever space she occupies, while her diction carries her.

To culminate the evening, she took her fans to “Perfect Places” and ventured into her aggressively personal “Green Light.” While she may not be the spunky rebellious teen that the world took notice to, Lorde certainly showered the night with her capability and devotion as an artist, not as a royal.

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Mimi Geller

Confetti stars fell onto the audience during "Green Light."