Lennon Stella – Concert Review

The young and beautiful Canadian singer, Lennon Stella (20), was back in Switzerland with her first European headlining tour. I already have seen Lennon as a support act for Anne-Marie last spring and honestly, I didn’t like her set at all. But since then she was on a big arena tour with The Chainsmokers and 5 Seconds of Summer throughout North America. I think she must have developed herself and her performance skills on a personal and artistic level during this time. Therefore, I wanted to give her a second chance and went to see her with my friends and twin sister last week.

The concert was on the 16^th of February in Kaufleuten, Zurich. I also saw artists like Julia Michaels and Hayley Kiyoko performing there live. It’s a perfect venue for artists to interact with their fans. The doors opened at 6.00 p.m. and we got inside very quickly, the security check wasn’t strict at all. There were a lot of teenagers, most of them were accompanied by a parent. Another thing I noticed was how terrible her merch designs were, I didn’t like a single piece. My friends and I stood in the middle near to the stage and chatted, while drinking to the end of our semester break.

Support Act

Kyd the Band, a new name for me, went on stage at 6.45 p.m. He started his set with his single Human and managed to impress us all with his set. I definitely became a fan of him. He does this rap-pop thing similar to blackbear, dark sound with inspiring lyrics. Kyd the Band interacted with the crowd very well and gained a lot of sympathies. He was only accompanied by his drummer Zach. I love his singles This Time Last Year and Dark Thoughts. I could even feel the bass vibrations in my body during several songs. After twenty minutes, he closed the set with Easy, his collaboration with Elley Duhé. This emotional inspiring track really made me think of my family and what home means to me. An new artist for you to check out!

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Lennon Stella’s Performance

After waiting for half an hour the beautiful Lennon Stella appeared on stage at 7.45 p.m. She even got a rose from a fan, which made her smile. She started the night with an unreleased slow song called Blacklight, therefore nobody could sing along. The opposite was the case when she continued with the fan-favorites Bad and Feelings from her debut EP Love, me. The ambiance was rather dark and you couldn’t feel much energy in the crowd. Lennon changed that quickly when she surprisingly covered Umbrella by Rihanna. With this upbeat club hit she made everyone sing and dance. I must say this cover was my highlight of the night. The way she sang the next unreleased song Die Average the lyrics were incomprehensible. Lennon brought a wooden chair on stage for the next song. Everyone was expecting a dance choreography but she literally sat down and performed Paperweight. She even used playback and didn’t even bother to lip-synch. I was also disappointed when she played an acoustic version of Takeaway, her global chart-topping hit single from last summer. If she played the audio version, she would have brought a lot of energy into the room, which was severely lacking. Unlike me, many of the fans enjoyed the slow version. Up next was her piano cover of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and I must say that I already didn’t enjoy this one last year. Lennon Stella has just a tendency to perform upbeat tracks like acoustic ballads, which is definitely not my cup of tea. I liked it the way she played her first-ever release Like Everybody Else on the piano. Then, she brought back more energy with the lead single Kissing Other People of her upcoming debut album One. Two. Three. I enjoyed this performance as well.

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After playing another unreleased song it was time for her newest track Golf on TV, which is a collaboration with the singer JP Saxe. Unlike she did for the other songs, Lennon took her time to introduce this song and told us how it was to work with JP Saxe. She continued with Fortress and sat down again to sing the unreleased Huey Lewis with a terrible vocal effect. It was finally time for my favorite upbeat singles B**CH and La Di Da. The intro she had for B**CH sounded so strange that I couldn’t even recognize the track first. However, I enjoyed these two songs and sang along. She sat down on the chair again for the final to perform her unreleased ballad Goodnight. When the song was over, she said thanks for coming and left the stage with a quick goodbye. Everyone was expecting an encore but unfortunately, she didn’t come back. After waiting for some minutes many fans left the venue with a disappointed expression and so did I. I was expecting her to perform her other chat success Polaroid or her recent collaboration Workin’ On It with Meghan Trainor. She definitely should have performed these two songs instead of performing so many unreleased songs. I was also expecting her to sing Love her #2 chart-topping commercial single in Switzerland from 2014. She had recorded this one as a duo with her little sister. The fact is that she left the stage surprisingly after performing for a little more than an hour.

Lennon’s interactions with the younger audience were missing. She wasn’t talkative at all. A beautiful girl came, she performed and she left. But who’s the person behind these songs. Her stage presence was lacking personality. I also think that she was kind of imitating Billie Eilish during her performance. I must say that I’m not a big fan of Billie’s music style. Therefore, Billie Eilish fans might enjoy her concerts more. But I don’t think I’ll give her a third chance. I really hope for her to improve for her upcoming North America Tour this year.