#SPOTTED: HALSEY IN TORONTO FOR “BADLANDS” TOUR AT PHOENIX CONCERT HALL

2015 has been a phenomenal year for New Jersey native Halsey, née Ashley Frangipane. The 21-year-old Singer/Songwriter’s debut disc Badlands has garnered critical acclaim and a growing legion of fans.  Her electronic-alternative edge has a pop familiarity to it and in addition to being rebellious and confessional, her music possesses a sophistication and poetic elegance to it.

Record retailers like HMV in Canada have given her the greatest vote of confidence even offering a money-back guarantee on the purchase of Badlands should you not be satisfied with it.  In an era of declining physical album sales, this says a lot.

I had the pleasure of seeing Halsey live at The Phoenix on her first ever self-headlining tour. She also will be opening for Toronto’s The Weeknd‘s The Madness Fall Tour on select dates. In fact, he also had a show in the city tonight at Air Canada Centre, one of two this week.

The colourfully-haired chanteuse who decidedly is blonde right now, told the packed crowd, “The Weeknd told me all about Toronto love!” before telling fans she would perform a one-city exclusive, a cover of Justin Bieber‘s smash What Do You Mean specially for Toronto.

Enhanced by LED visual displays, while being dimly-lit in blues and reds for added intrigure, Halsey performed for about an hour, sounding absolutely solid. The short length of tracks presented some pacing issues as things would get moving and stop multiple times, though Halsey was pleased to talk to fans with great personability about her excitement touring in-between.

Halsey recorded a duet with Bieber recently titled The Feeling, to appear on his upcoming new disc Purpose. Although making mention of it, she wouldn’t perform any of it with several speculating Bieber would show up.

Listen to her talk about her experience working with Justin Bieber below:

See her live cover for Toronto only, of What Do You Mean (NSFW):

Halsey was amazingly-nice after her show to stop to snap Selfies in a crowd of hundreds of fans wrapping along Sherbourne Street. Despite not being able to get to all, she did her best and had a handler manage expectations.

Unfortunately, Halsey had some press lined-up for tomorrow including a live set at  radio station The Edge, which was cancelled as she is to fly-out.  We did manage to meet her quickly and she was the sweetest and despite panic when she came out, she kept it all calm especially after some incidences at her previous shows.

See our Snap:

This girl has so got it. A real pop star. #Halsey + me. #Badlands #BadlandsTour

A photo posted by Mr. Will Wong (@mrwillwong) on Nov 3, 2015 at 9:20pm PST

Music should speak for itself, so I’ll let you enjoy a couple live tracks from tonight, my favourities from Badlands.

Roman Holiday

Colors

If you haven’t already, order Badlands now on iTunes.

(Photo/video credit: Mr. Will Wong)