In her first N.J. arena show, Halsey was gracious, fierce and happy to be home
NEWARK -- Before she was Halsey, the Grammy-nominated alt-pop songstress who sold out Madison Square Garden last summer and scored her first No. 1 album this past June, she was Ashley (Halsey being an anagram) Nicoletta Frangipane, born Sept. 29, 1994 at JFK Medical Center in Edison, to parents who had met and married at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Ashley was a Pop Warner cheerleader in Clark, and before she graduated from Warren Hills Regional High School in 2012, Frangipane and her boyfriend used to sit in the Garden State Plaza mall parking lot, listening to burned CDs in his car.
All of this Halsey recounted in Newark Saturday night, from the steps of an immense staircase the comprised the majority of her Prudential Center stage. It was the Jersey's girl's first headlining arena show in her home state and she appeared thrilled to be back.
"Every fiber and fabric of my being was born here ... here there were people I loved and lost, and a lot of lessons learned," she said.
And the 23-year-old singer's education rolls on; Halsey's new album "Hopeless Fountain Kingdom" is populated with beautiful, defenseless songwriting and marks a sure-footed leap forward in emotional clarity for the fiery star -- that invincible, "don't give a bleep" aesthetic she's touted since 2014 now spars with the pain of a real young woman whose heartache she can barely manage.
"Sorry that I can't believe that anybody ever really starts to fall in love with me," she sings on the heartbreaking new ballad "Sorry," her voice choking on tears more than once before the song's end.
Yes, there was plenty of Halsey's patented electro-pop thumpery and hip-shaking hubris to be had this night, but these blips of sincerity -- the moments that proved she's not just another faceless vocalist who sings over a drum machine -- were what made this performance more round and memorable than her milestone Madison Square Garden offering last August, which was plenty fierce, but light on modesty.
The telling newbies "Eyes Closed" and "Bad at Love," an addictive tune that somehow has yet to explode on pop radio, hammered the point that while Halsey has ostensibly figured out this whole music thing, her relationships fail just like any young lover.
Though Saturday's shrewdest move was tethered to the night's biggest hit: "Closer," Halsey's collaboration with DJ duo The Chainsmokers that topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks last year, was smartly slowed down and stripped it of its ubiquitous synth lines -- this time it was just Halsey an a pianist providing newfound depth to what will go down as one of the decade's biggest hits. While Halsey doesn't possess the same sky-scraping vocal ability of pop competitors Ariana Grande or Demi Lovato, her raspy style is recognizable and crisp, and on "Closer," with no backing track for support, she soared. The crowd of teens and 20-somethings shrieked with approval.
Her staging was one of the niftier pop setups I've seen this year, from the large, streamlined staircase, which was outfitted with LED screens to make it seem as though Halsey was standing in a mountain valley or drifting in space, to a secondary stage at the back of the venue atop which a layer of water sat, allowing for some splashing choreography, a la Beyonce's Formation tour. Blonde hair extensions and revealing, white and blood-red costumes were a stark shift from last year's dark pixie cut and hip-hop-inspired outfits.
Much of the 90-minute set it was Halsey alone on stage; occasionally she and a female dancer who wore a face-shielding mask would interact with some interpretive and sometimes sensual choreography. A three-piece band played off to the side of the staircase.
Halsey was gracious to her fans, allowing a group of VIPs to select which song she'd play in a certain point in the set, and for her oldest track "Is There Somewhere," she hopped down into the crowd and trotted around the arena, hugging dozens of supporters, many of whom burst into tears immediately afterward.
During the encore, she played "Gasoline," a searing tune that opened her MSG show, which asks in its first line "Are you insane like me?" Last year, such an inquiry seemed more apropos.
Now, Ashley from New Jersey doesn't seem so crazy, and that's a good thing.
Halsey's set list
Oct. 14, 2017 -- Prudential Center, Newark, N.J.
- "Eyes Closed"
- "Hold Me Down"
- "Castle"
- "Good Mourning"
- "Heaven in Hiding"
- "Strangers"
- "Roman Holiday"
- "Walls Could Talk"
- "Bad at Love"
- "Alone"
- "Sorry"
- "Angel on Fire"
- B Stage:
- "Lie"
- "Don't Play"
- A stage"
- "Drive" (Fans' choice)
- "Is There Somewhere"
- "Now or Never"
- "Colors"
- "Young God"
- Encore:
- "Hopeless" (Interlude)
- "Gasoline"
- "Hurricane"
Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.