After waiting two long years to get back on the road, Billie Eilish is taking fans behind-the-scenes of her long-awaited arena tour. In a newly shared long-form video, the singer and songwriter documents the lead up to the Happier Than Ever world tour beginning with the two days before its opening night in New Orleans at the Smoothie King Center.
The video goes in-depth on Eilish’s pre-tour process, playing through a full run of the show to an empty arena to make note of any changes she would like to implement. Throughout her career, the musician has long been heavily involved in the visual depiction of her music, going so far as to direct her own music videos to maintain creative control of her vision. In the tour visual, she makes tweaks to certain lighting cues and stage positionings to increase the quality of the show.
At multiple moments, Eilish notes ways in which the experience could be elevated for the fans watching, even making her way to the farthest back row of the New Orleans venue to see what the show would look like to fans sitting in the nosebleeds. The setlist for the tour, revealed in full in the video with notes of stage transitions, pulls together music from Happier Than Ever; When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?; and her earliest EPs and one-off singles which featured songs like “Bellyache,” “Ocean Eyes,” “Bored,” and more.
But as much as the tour is about Eilish reuniting with her fans in a live setting for the first time since the pandemic brought her first large-scale arena tour stint to an end after only three nights, it is heavily dependent on the singer’s own personal wellbeing. Throughout the tour visual, she invites the viewer into the physical therapy warm ups she does before heading out on stage and the nine vitamins her mother makes sure she takes to stay healthy on the road.
So far, Eilish has knocked out 15 dates of the 32-date North American tour stretch including two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. She’ll pick back up on March 8 and continue through April 9 with a third hometown show at The Forum in Los Angeles. Within the mix of shows, Eilish will also make time to headline Coachella as the youngest artist to headline the festival in its 23-year history.
In June, the Happier Than Ever world tour will resume for an 18-date arena tour across Europe and the United Kingdom. In September, Eilish will take on Australia and New Zealand. More information about tour dates can be found on the official Billie Eilish website.