Noah Cyrus comes to Boston to present us with her new album “The Hardest Part”. This body of music introduces us to the inner world of the artist, and depicts a journey of growth and overcoming hardships. Noah has expressed on multiple occasions that this album has saved her life. Her live show, like the album, beautifully tells us the story of this journey.
Singer/songwriter Gigi opens the show. Enthusiastic to be back in the city, as the singer spent her college years in Boston while she attended Berklee College of music. She plays her guitar, and sings songs like “Backwood” and “Chemistry is Rare”. Gigi sets the stage for an exciting night of music to come.
Noah takes the stage with a sense of hope and renewed energy. She opens her set with her new song “Noah (Stand Still)”. On her album, Cyrus sings a version of this song with her father, as his words were the ones that inspired the song. The song “Noah” speaks to the challenges she faced as she overcame a Xanax addiction. The lyrics quite viscerally express a long battle with depression and hopelessness, and how, in times like this, playing the waiting game can be the best option, to just stand still. Noah’s new music conserves her well-known sound, presenting us with a mix of contemporary pop and country music, and lyrics that when recited without tunes, could might as well be poems.
Noah continues the night singing songs like “Mr. Percocet” and “I Just Want a Lover”. She also sings a cover of “Cowboy Take Me Home” by “The Chicks”, one of the singer’s favorite bands. The fans scream the loudest when the song “I Burned LA Down” starts playing. Cyrus dedicates her show to both of her late grandmothers. She shares that she couldn’t say goodbye to one of her grandmothers due to the global pandemic. On the other hand, she could go back to Nashville and say her proper goodbyes to her grandmother on her father’s side. She emphasizes the importance that music played in saying goodbye and mourning her loss as she sings “Loretta’s Song”. Noah sings “July” and her fans cheer her on. She says goodbye to the fans and thanks them and her band as they all leave the stage. The venue cheers loudly and starts chanting her name “Noah, Noah, Noah…”. The band returns to the stage, and the singer follows a couple of seconds behind them. For the encore, she sings “Lonely”, “Make Me Cry”, and says goodbye, for real this time, with her song “The End of Everything”.
Noah Cyrus excels in her vocal performance. She executes every note effortlessly. The singer performs a show full of emotion. The Noah that stands on the stage of this tour is one that has found peace after a lot of pain. I could almost feel a sense of relief in the air, it was like she was telling us “I survived”. This show is a great opportunity to experience a night of great music as well as to do some deep introspection. Noah Cyrus leaves everything on the stage, she doesn’t hold back on her story, and invites everyone who is listening to do the same.
PHOTO GALLERY BY María José Torre
