Delilah Holliday made a huge impression with her hypnotic electro beats and self-confident demeanor.
Still brand new, but right: Delilah Holliday is currently on tour in Europe supporting Georgia. In this context, the British native played a brilliant one-woman show at Frannz in Berlin on December 6th. We were there.
Delilah Holliday takes over the room
It’s definitely difficult to take the stage as a support act. Deep down you know that the audience is waiting for the artist after you and you hope that they can still appreciate your own music. However, Delilah Holliday seemed to be completely free of this fear. She came on stage, greeted the crowd of maybe 25 people and started straight away with a beat that made everyone in the club realize: She is completely here and she is ready.
In keeping with the setting, the musician started with her single “On My Own Wave” from her double EP INVALUABLE VOL, which was released in 2023. 1 & 2. Her warm voice continuously caressed the sharp downtempo tones and she seemed completely engulfed in the deep blue stage lights. All you could see was a silhouette swaying back and forth to epic electronic beats.
The audience, who initially looked irritated and uncertain towards the stage, soon danced more and more exuberantly and even moved their heads like snakes to the hypnotic rhythm. Minus point: What was a little annoying was the volume of the sound, which seemed to swallow up the vocals a little. But hey, that was just the beginning, right, Delilah Holliday?
Great rave atmosphere all on your own
In addition to songs from her double EP, she also performed songs from her other band, Skinny Girl Diet, and their 2021 release COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. Especially with “Delilah The Spider”, you couldn’t tell from the relaxed party atmosphere that the artist was completely alone on stage and had to take care of the sound in addition to the singing. Because while she was casually dropping the beat on her board, Delilah Holliday was dancing to her tracks at the same time – as sensually as if she were experiencing them live for the first time. Completely in her own world, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment when the gentle melody stopped briefly so that the bass could begin. Then the break with “Burn Money”, in whose punky, aggressive chorus she simply screamed into the microphone.
Although she seemed completely focused, she explained to us in an interview afterwards that she had paid particular attention to the crowd’s reaction: “There was a guy right at the front of the audience who was really dancing along the whole time. I love that!” And so do we.
During the psychedelic track “Drugs, Again?” towards the end of the 30-minute show, the mood in the venue actually seemed to have reached its peak. Delilah Holliday jumped over the stage surrounded by flickering red and white lights and the audience did the same. She then ended her concert part with “Silent Streets” and particularly striking synths. Quite a sudden cut, because just as the audience was really immersing themselves in her music, she had to leave the stage again without an encore.
“I love being on tour. And it gives me hope that one day I’ll have my own headline tour,” she told the Berliners. And you would now like to see an even more extensive show from her!
Conclusion: Delilah Holliday combined aggressive beats with her pleasant vocal organ and moved genre-fluidly between a touch of alternative indie, psychedelic, relaxed lo-fi soul elements and a pinch of punk – and at all times with absolute self-confidence.