The Delighting “Immortal Tour” of Abie Lena
A review of The Immortals World Tour by Billboard.com

Watch Abie Lena live is a delight for your ears, the powerhouse vocal singer has been active for almost five years now, having released four studio albums, one live album it was the perfect time for her to kick off her very first headline tour, if you didn’t know, she first supported Cassie Valentine at the Pink Romance Tour and when she announced her “Seasons World Tour” plans were over due to her illness which lead her to write her third album however she didn’t toured solo, she was one of the three headliners of the No Venues Tour, so imagined that after four years and a half of career, she’s making her debut headlining tour, with guests to open the concert for her and by the way we have to admit that whowever had anything to do with Bianca Moretti hiring, this person hit the point, both singer share an enormous amount of fans, saying that we already can say that this reviewer first was pleased by the grown audience that those singer share and how they were able to connect with each other even though the show didn’t start.
It’s October 8th of 2014, the gig is at New Orleans Arena in obviously New Orleans, one of the sold out North American gigs of the tour. Fans gathering slowly as the gates were four hours earlier opened, but believe me, when it was about the time to Bianca takes the stage, the crowd was already there, that’s how people enjoys a show that brings two amazing singers together, by arriving on time. So first we have Bianca, obviously she has a short set list, probably half of the set that Abie performs, but she does her work perfectly good. The fans know the words of the songs; she interacts with fans with informal conversations among her set list which proves her charming charisma. More than just a warming, Bianca is a show a part, she does increase the level of quality of this tour, we clearly had the sensation that we were not only paying for an Abie Lena show, but for a Bianca Moretti show too and with the price of one concert.
Bianca leaves the stage and then goes another half hour to get everything ready for Abie gets the stage. The stage is not as simple as we thought it would be, it has the shape of a theater but instead of curtains it has led panels to everywhere, there’s not catwalk, but it has a curve which makes Abie’s place closer to the audience compared to the corners of the stage, there’s elegant chandeliers in the roof of the stage giving a classic look to it. The band places behind Abie’s pedestal, the lack of space between Abie and her band is quite large, once during some performances, four couple of dancers comes to bring an extra visual aspect to the concert. The band is composed of one percussionist and one drummer, there’s two violinists, three backing vocals, one electric guitar player, one bass player, one string player who also performs the acoustic sets of the concert, one pianist, two sax players, and one programmer. They all dress black tie and so does Abie, by the way Abie don’t change her clothes during the show.
The show has separated segments with melodic intros and videos telling a story of a ghost, just like the conception of Abie’s fourth album, but the chronological order in the concert is opposite to the album, so the story starts with the main character already being the ghost and later it goes telling its own story so it gets to the point when it was alive and married, but the encore of the concert takes the “present” time again. The story serves as a background to the songs of the set list, so they are performed in order but most important it is not only following the storyline order but the melodic order too, Abie kicks in the concert with her baroque pop and pop opera repertoire till her most jazz influenced songs, it gives the audience a taste of all Abie Lena facets.
The intro melodies are a mood setting, the first one called “After Death” it’s a vocalization, a creepy lullaby, desolating that actually ends the record but here starts the concert, after the first video concept of the show Abie is heard performing it, she comes walking from the back of the stage with only her silhouette appearing, till she gets on her quite stylish pedestal, covered in white crystals, placing her mic and finally singing the first big hit of the night. “Transcending” is another Intro presented on the album and extended in the show, it serves to introduce the pop rock songs of the set, Abie’s band receives some attention here and during the set of songs of this segment, each one of her musicians is presented to her audience as its instrument being played had a certain attention on the song performed, the acoustic set of the concert is also performed in this segment, a very special moment of the show, because Abie can show the connection between her and her musicians. “The Other Side” it’s a mandolin intro and it serves mostly to close the previous segment and to starts the other one who has the main jazz influenced songs of the entire show, “Nowhere” introduces the encore of the night, this creepy piano lullaby takes the audience back to the first segment of the show in a sort of a cycle ending, the concert as if it could re-start from the beginning and transits through the set of songs once again.
The set list was carefully made to cheer things up when they are too dark and also to give the fans nostalgic and euphoric moments. Staring with two smash hits “You make me die” and “Dead for a reason” Abie and her 25 thousands backing vocals (the crowd) sing each line of the two songs, great excitement on the second one when Tisha Jackson appears in the led screen in a video performing her part of the song, if you are watching the performance in front of the center of the stage, you’ll easily have the illusion that Tisha is next to Abie behind a pedestal singing as if she was an hologram projection, well she is not, but the visual illusion is real, you only see that she is a led screen projection when you bend to the left or the right of your view, also Tisha recorded live vocals for this performance which helps the illusion to appear real, even more. After two big hits, the new album songs “The last Goodbye” and “Lost in Hell” followed by a welcoming message from Abie turns the set list dark and desolating. “Lost in Hell” receives a special visual treatment, Abie can’t be seen while she performs it, and we only see her silhouette but the colors changes as her voice ranges from lower to higher notes. To end the segmented there’s the fan favorite but not turned into single “Phoenix”, fans avidly singing the words of this track just to prove Abie that they’re loyal fans who loves all of her songs (but seriously I still wonder why Studio 60 didn’t released this as a single).
For the following songs, Abie plays strings instruments, starting with an electric guitar for “Epitaph”, the newly announced single “Something Before” and the pop rock medley “He grieves / Burial”, three songs in a row with no pause the last being a medley, putting the fans to dance. This is basically the most rock influence the whole concert receives so imagine bright white lights, some video projection and fan waving their fists above their head, quite unusual for Abie, but hey it’s rock and roll babe. The acoustic segment of the concert turns off the led screen, bring Abie’s musician next to her, they form a half moon circle surrounding Abie, all of them sited in stools and so does Abie in the center of the half circle, but not in front of them, beside them. The lights receive an orange tone and they light up the stage from the ground, it appears that Abie is in some London Pub performing a cover set, till she breaks in with the emotionally apathetic “I’m sad” followed by a re-edition of the even more apathetic “Seasons” and another re-edition of the smash hit “Cold Spring” this one very emotional driven and with vocals shared with the fans, what a wonderful opportunity to get the fans closer by a sing-along in an acoustic set. Back are the most classical tracks of the set, everyone at its place, ballet dancers behind Abie and two orchestral songs, the pleading “Again” and the even more pleading “Little Star”. The ballet it’s quite beautiful, it gives the stage a theater look.
The segment continues, but it’s clear that the next songs follow another intonation, perfectly chosen as the shift in the mood of the set list is the medley “No love / Desert of Despair”, it also introduces a moving Abie Lena, who has her pedestal out of the stage and with microphone in her hands she walks sexily the stage, she gets near the edge to hold fans’ hands. The next one “Casual Meeting” sees the dancers back on stage, this time to perform jazz routines, while Abie in some parts of the songs alludes some gestures to her dancers in the end of the performance she introduces the four women and four men accompanying her on tour. Moving to the old jazz influenced “Pimp’s Tears” the interaction between Abie and her dancers is increased, Abie seems to be surrounded by them the entire performance as if they wanted to be next to Abie to share her ironic suffering, represented on the song lines. Don’t forget to mention that this performance is avidly well received by the audience; after all it’s one of Abie’s highest selling singles of her career. “The Pact” and “The Break Up” are performance almost together, if they were not fully performed they could be a medley, for the last one which is another cheered song by the audience due to Abie’s dancing in the final melodies of it just like she performed at the Fan Choice Awards, except that there’s no kiss in this performance, but before we knew she wouldn’t be kissed we thought she would, very exciting and smart to pursue her fans to think about the kiss. The last segment of the show is a back in time travel to Abie’s first and second album and three smash hits, first after the intro comes the folk oriented “The Same Tear” loudly sung by the fans, another sing-along moment on the concert very worthy for Abie’s health, I must say, this song seem to be very exhausting to perform, soon after Abie sits in a classical back piano to perform the heartbreaking “Broke Up!” and this one being in my opinion the best vocal performance of the night, it was just Abie, the piano and her high notes, I never imagined that this song was so beautiful as it is after this performance, don’t blame me if I cried during this performance. The show comes to its final set, “Fake Plastic Life” gave me nostalgic chills, despite Abie performed the entire song, no sing-along at all, it was hard to hear her voice, the fans were louder. After the song, Abie says goodbye to her fans quickly, we knew there was the encore, but we pretend she was leaving.
The final intro took us back to the creepy begging of the show, the haunting “Where Immortals Live” is brilliantly performed, the technical of the song is the best of the entire concert, we even thought that Abie’s voice would sound tired, but in fact it is not, she was holding back at some points for this final segment, we are sure of that. A rain of black paper falls down, Abie declares her love for her fans and finally say goodbye to them. What a beautiful night, what an amazing time, what an incredible spectacle, it only represents the power of being a singer like Abie Lena and the reason why people love her so much, why she sold over 25 million records worldwide and why she is still relevant and significant after almost five years of career. Abie is in her best shape right now, not only physically talking but also her artistic shape, what she’ll bring after this era certainly will be better and better, I will watch Abie Lena again during this tour and you should watch her too, well if you’re Australian, because the European and USA legs are sold out my friend, shame on you, if you didn’t buy your tickets yet, let’s hope for another leg in uncle Sam’s land.





Immortal World Tour Set List

1- After Death (Intro)
2- You make me die
3- Dead for a reason
4- The last Goodbye
5- Lost in Hell
6- Phoenix
7- Transcending (Intro)
8- Epitaph
9- Something Before
10- Medley: He grieves / Burial
11- I’m sad
12- Seasons
13- Cold Spring
14- Again
15- Little Star
16- Medley: No Love / Desert of Despair
17- Casual Meeting
18- Pimp’s Tears
19- The Pact
20- The Break Up
21- The Other Side (Intro)
22- The Same Tear
23- Broke Up!
24- Fake Plastic Life
25- Nowhere (Intro)
26- Where Immortals live

Song: I’m sad
Abie Lena
Album: Grim History of Love
Directed by: Marc Webb
Studio60

The video starts with aerial shots of a neighbor, it’s black and white and it’s snowing, the cameras falls from the sky focusing in a single house as the song plays its initial melodies, the cameras approaches the tallest window of this house until it goes through the glass revealing a messy bedroom and Abie Lena lied in the bed looking to the roof with an astonish look on her face, she has cigarette on her right hand and as she brings it she blows the smoke with her mouth and it takes the form of a broken heart, then she starts to sing the first verse of the song. The camera circles down to close up on her face as she is singing the lines, she devise her glance to the left corner of the room, where its revealed to be a photographed nailed with darts, it’s a man, probably her beloved one.
She then raises from the bed and remains a few second sited on it, she’s wearing a blue shirt and black jeans, a red cap covering her dark hair, sited don the bed the camera reveals more details on the bedroom, there is a torn letter on the floor which can be read “I’m leaving” Abie now looking apathetic as she keeps on singing the depressive lyrics of the track, she looks with the corned of her eyes the torn letter and she ironically cracks a smile. The scene shifts to a colorful Abie in top of a building earing the same red cap, there she is singing the lines, but she looks quite prettier than the scene where she is at her house and even cleaner as we may say, but she has some sarcastic face expressions which can be quite scary.
The video continues with Abie on her bedroom black and white, now she is standing in front of the mirror, changing her clothes, it’s quite sexy by the way, she took of her shirt revealing a black underwear, she kept the pants, she tried a few clothes, some of them didn’t fit her, it’s strange because the house seems to be hers, but why does the clothes didn’t fit her? She throws the unfitting clothes away and tries another one that fit her perfectly. At this moment the camera reveals another curiosity on the bedroom, it’s a portrait on the wall, there’s Abie as a bridesmaid at a weeding, the groom it’s clearly the same of the picture with darts. He is with a beautiful bride on his side, Abie takes a dart of the ground and throws at it, it stiches right in the face of the bride.



The scene changes to the one where Abie is on top of the building, now revealing she’s looking to the window of another building, she than takes some steps towards the camera as it circles to Abie’s back, but before it reveals what is in front of Abie, the scene shifts to the bedroom once again. Now Abie is on the corridor of the house, as she takes some steps, still lip-syncing the song lines, there’s a towel with red blood and a knife thrown on the floor. Abie throws her cigarette on the woods floor and steps on it, the whole scene gets colorful again as Abie arrives at the bathroom, before we could see what’s inside the bathroom, the scene changed to Abie on the top of the building, now revealing that she was in front of the bride of that picture, the woman is looking at Abie, sort of asking her if she did what they planned, Abie is smiling and looking passionate to that woman, they hold hands and share a kiss. The scene goes back to the bathroom, Abie is facing the groom dead on the bathtub, she has a psycho look on her face, she gets another cigarette and lights it instantly, and throwing smoke on his dead body, the smoke takes the form of a skull. The scene shifts as the song slowly ends, now it’s black and white again and Abie walks alone through that snowing streets, the camera follows Abie walking showing her face as she pulls a picture from her pocket of the woman she was kissing in the top of that building, Abie still looks sad although, the camera slowly turns to film Abie’s back as she disappear into the snow. The music stops and the video seem to end.



Post Credits

After the announcement of the credits, a short scene appears, Abie on the top of the building, looking down, it seems that this scene was the present time of the story, the black and white one was the past, Abie was telling the story of her murdering the groom to the woman Abie supposedly loves, but now she was looking down from the top of the building and down on the pavement there’s the body of the woman Abie just kissed, so Abie killed her too, the disturbing scene ends with Abie smiling, letting the torn letter fall of her hands and the cameras closes on it and it says: