Lily Allen hits back at complaint of ‘West End Girl’ live show: “I don’t want anyone to feel ripped off”
Lily Allen has hit back at a fan who criticised her live show of West End Girl, after some of the artistic choices of the gig took people by surprise.
Allen has commanded a major part of the cultural zeitgeist since the release of West End Girl, which charts the breakdown of her relationship with her ex-husband, David Harbour.
However, with this has come a range of stylistic moments, both from within the album and live performances, that has seen the singer often plastered over social media feeds, the most recent of which hasn’t been as positive.
On June 29th, a fan who had been at Allen’s show at London’s O2 Arena the previous night made a post on X which went viral, stating, “No support act. Arrived on stage at 9:10pm. All wrapped up by 10pm. Not one word to the audience. £86 to sit in the gods.”
Subsequently, in response to the complaint, Allen reposted the fan’s words on X before adding her own comment, in which she said, “There is a support act. The show has always been advertised as ‘Lily Allen performs West End Girl’.”
She continued: “I was a few mins late as my tights were laddered and I had to change them. The show is just over an hour as it’s just the album in its entirety. It’s my artistic choice not to talk to the audience, the fourth wall helps with the storytelling. Most people find it to be effective.”
Despite justifying her choices, Allen concluded by saying, “I don’t want anyone to feel ripped off. Everyone on this tour is really working very hard to give people the best show we possibly can, and I’m extremely proud of it.”
In any case, this does give audiences the chance to prepare for what to expect when they see the show, as aside from shows in Dublin, one more in London, and taking on the European festival circuit this summer, Allen is set to head Stateside with the tour in September.
Performing massive shows including New York’s Madison Square Garden and the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, it will mark ‘The Fear’ singer’s first ever North American arena tour.
For his part, Harbour recently broke his silence on the impact of the album, telling Variety “It was weird,” before adding, “I do believe that it is the privilege of every artist to use their experience to create art, and so I respect her for doing that.”
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