On Friday January 27th, Billie Eilish Live at the O2 (Extended Cut) was released for one night only in theaters worldwide with no current plans to release on streaming platforms. The movie documented the performance from her Happier than Ever world tour. Going into the movies, there was not much information on what the movie would be about, and only a few trailers had been posted.  I had the opportunity to attend the 7:00 p.m. showing at the Dublin Regal Cinema.

The concert

 On Friday night, the lobby of the movies was flooded with fans wearing their tour merchandise. Once the movie started, fans realized that it was a recording of her complete concert live from the 02 Center in London. This special show was professionally recorded with “billions of cameras,” Eilish jokingly said, so that they could create this film. There were many different angles and shots taken from the show so that the watchers could get many perspectives and views from the live concert. 

Billie sang most of her songs and talked to the concert goer’s at the O2 Center. Fans in the theater were yelling and singing each song like they were a part of the concert. At one point during the film, Billie Eilish told the people at the concert in London to stand up and dance, so the entire movie theater got out of their seats and rushed to the bottom section to jump, dance, and create a mosh pit. This shocked me because I had never experienced anything like this in a movie theater before. Fans even waved around their phone flash lights during the sad songs. Billie wanted everyone to feel included, and I thought it was special to do this so that fans could experience her Happier than Ever world tour.

Behind the scenes

Fans in the movie theater got a special behind the scenes look at the concert when Billie had run backstage after finishing a song and jumped on an electric scooter to quickly get her from one side of the 02 Center to the other. Attached onto Billie’s scooter was an Iphone, so that we could see how Billie was riding on her scooter backstage. This was one of the only behind the scenes clips that was shown in the film. Personally, I wish that the movie included more information and clips of the backstage concert secrets that concertgoers do not get to see. 

Verdict

I was lucky enough to get to see Eilish’s Happier Than Ever tour last year at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Comparing and contrasting the movie and the live show, they were almost the same. I had recognized certain dance moves like when she rolled and sang on her stomach during her song “Therefore I am.” My favorite part of the movie was that it gave fans an opportunity to experience her tour if they did not get the chance to go or couldn’t afford the Ticketmaster prices.