By Dawn Jacob
As 7 p.m. rolled around, fans lined up outside of the Wolstein Center as the wait for the Hopeless Fountain Kingdom tour was finally over, just in time to unwind for Thanksgiving break.
The tour, announced in May, featured Charli XCX, PartyNextDoor, and Halsey. Being the last night of the tour, fans couldn’t hardly wait to see what was in store once they entered the building.
Ashley Nicole Frangipane — otherwise known by her stage name Halsey — released her second studio album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, on June 2, 2017. She announced her Hopeless Fountain Kingdom Tour a month prior to her album release.
As Charli XCX and PartyNextDoor conclude around 9 p.m., the anticipation of the fans was apparent as they waited for the final act of the night. With a close to capacity crowd, the lights finally dimmed as a white curtain dropped around the stage. After about a minute of intro music, Halsey, who wore a pair of tight white shorts and a sparkling white jacket, walked down a set of stairs singing her popular hit “Eyes Closed.” She then went on to sing “Hold Me Down” from her first studio album, Badlands.
With Cleveland State University’s recent uproar in the realm of the LGBT community, some of the words spoken by Halsey, an identified member of the LGBT community herself, hit home: “If you are a member of the LGBT community, nothing will stop me from making sure this is a safe place for you tonight. I wrote this song from the bottom of my heart, for you, for us,” Halsey said as she went on to sing “Strangers.”
“Thank you for having me back,” Halsey stated in reference to a more sweaty show she played in the prior year at Nautica for her Badlands tour. Due to it being the last night of the tour, Halsey went on to say, “You guys have a lot to live up to tonight” and that it “feels really amazing connecting with you guys.”
The House of the show was split down the center, with the left of the stage being the Aureum and the right being the Angelus, was meant to represent the entirety of the album: duality- one thing versus the other.
The night took a turn from the flashy lights and upbeat pop tunes, as a piano was rolled out onto the stage, where fans swayed their phone flashlights as Halsey went on the play an acoustic version of the hit song done with the Chainsmokers “Closer”.
During this rendition of the song she changed the lyrics in the end from “we ain’t ever getting older” to “we are only getting older.” As Halsey finished the song, sitting on the stage, said, “I’m about to get emotional for a second.”
Being unsure as to whether or not she wanted to play “Closer,” even though it was the first song she ever had on the radio — on this tour because it didn’t really fit in between the two worlds of Badlands and Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, she went on to say that “Closer is one of those songs that got really annoying.”
She ultimately decided a week into the tour that she would play “Closer” because year after year, seeing the same fans, she realized that these fans are getting older.
“We are getting older, and it has been an absolute honor sound tracking that growth in your lives,” Halsey said.
After she promised to not get mushy, she went on to sing an acoustic rendition of “Sorry” to the piano. Every night during her tour, she would let the louder side of the crowd decide whether she would play “Ghost” or “100 letters,” and as this was the last night of the tour, she played both.
“100 Letters” the pop singer explained, was about an ex-boyfriend who wanted her to be something that she was not. Somebody who would make her feel so small, but would still manage to put little notes in the pocket of her pants saying, “I love you. You’re beautiful.”
She explained the song came from her taking those pants with those tiny, little notes and putting them in the wash to drown them. “If you have someone in your life who wants you to be someone that you’re not, and they’re writing you letters, drown those letters,” Halsey said.
As the show continued, “Is There Somewhere,” a song from her first EP, Room 93, was performed and instrumentals went on as the singer went out into the crowd to personally thank her fans by hugging them.
After a nearly two-hour set, Halsey concluded the night with a bang. A video montage of old concert footage played as Halsey prepared for the show’s closure. The encore began with “Gasoline” and finished with “Hurricane,” as the artist stated,
“Cleveland, this song is a reminder that you do not belong to anybody but yourself,” ending the night with a blast of confetti into the crowd.