Can Only Go Up From Here: Opening Night of “The Hayley Williams Show”
Photo by @zacharygray on instagram
9.3.26 - West Palm Beach, FL
Photo posted by @paramorgan96 on twitter
Williams donned a custom tie-dyed Nashville, TN shirt on stage that evening as an homage to her roots and a tribute to the late, Dolly Parton, who she shouted out before playing “Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party.”
Following the release of Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, it seemed like everyone and their mother wanted to see Hayley Williams live at the accompanying tour. Slight problem: she wanted a very intimate venue (~2-3000 capacity per venue) for that tour, which already had a limited number of tour dates. That left many, including myself, without a ticket to hear “Whim” or “Showbiz” live. So, when the announcement came out for “The Hayley Williams Show” and the venues large enough to hold about 20,000 people, I didn’t care how far I had to travel or where I had to sit to be in attendance. So, that’s how I ended up driving about four hours to West Palm Beach on a random Thursday in September to be there for opening night of the show.
If you’ve never seen Hayley Williams live, whether that be solo or with Paramore, you have to understand just how captivating her stage presence is. She’s electric and dancing the whole time while letting free some of the best vocals you’ll ever hear. She’s unapologetic, voicing her opinions against conservative politicians and social issues at every show. She even has what is called the “action village” at every show where you can take a tour and speak to representatives from various organizations that Williams supports. She makes a show visible and good enough for people in the lawn seats.
Another thing to note about this tour, however, is the total unknown number of people who had entered it. My favorite solo album of hers is her most recent, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, but she has two others that she never got to tour for. Petals for Armor and Flowers for Vases were released in 2020 and 2021, respectively, and due to ongoing world events, she never got to tour them. The promise for this tour was that songs from all three albums would be played, so everyone who absolutely loves her music went in anxiously hoping for their favorites to make the setlist.
Photo by @zacharygray on instagram
At least, that was the chatter I heard as we all stood in line for merch in the muggy, late summer south Florida weather. There were boards to vote for which songs people wanted to hear, bracelet trading based on vibes, and speculation on what Williams’ new hair color would be. So, when she finally took the stage with brand new blonde and brown hair to play “Just a Lover” from Flowers for Vases, it was like a breath was let out. The cream-colored drapery set returned from her prior tour, but she’s ditched the mesh and light fabrics for knee-length shorts and athleisure fit for bouncing around the stage. Williams performed twenty-five songs in total, being mostly a mixture of Ego Death and Petals for Armor. Despite the intensely vulnerable topics of these songs, she made the show feel like it was for everybody.
The crowd was ecstatically involved, singing songs like “Dead Horse” and “Simmer” like they’d been waiting years to be there… because they had. My personal favorite moment of the show was her performance of “My Friend," where she was joined by her close friend and Good Dye Young co-founder, Brian, on stage. She turned her back to the crowd as she sat down and sang the song with her eyes closed, Brian working on her makeup the whole time. It was vulnerable, beautiful, and perfectly matched the song.
As with everything Hayley Williams does, I highly recommend trying to get out to a stop on this tour. That may prove to be hard, however, since the tour is completely sold out and the best chance of getting tickets now is last-minute lawn seats. However, even being in the lawn for this show is worth it just to hear “Parachute” and sing it loudly with thousands of other people.
setlist courtesy of @thwsupdates on twitter
