Billie Eilish is more than a musician and songwriter though she is accomplished at both. She is a global figure on the music scene and a chameleon noted for doing things her way, and she is still only 20.
For her army of fans, formally known as avocados and now known as eyelashes, there is only one place they want to be on Saturday and Sunday night – the 3Arena for Eilish’s first concert in the Republic since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
By lunchtime the queue for the pit stretched nearly the length of the 3Arena. Her two shows at the venue follow on from Belfast on Friday night, the first concert of her European tour.
She is playing 18 venues in total on this leg of her European tour, but has left many countries off her itinerary for now.
Cutting off family members: ‘It had never occurred to me that you could grieve somebody who was still alive’
The bird-shaped obsession that drives James Crombie, one of Ireland’s best sports photographers
The Dublin riots, one year on: ‘I know what happened doesn’t represent Irish people’
The week in US politics: Gaetz fiasco shows Trump he won’t get everything his way
Fans queued from 5am on Saturday morning for standing room tickets. Her fans are something in her own image, being overwhelmingly female, in their late teens or early twenties and have something of the same idiosyncratic fashion style.
Many of the early arrivals came from abroad on the basis that if Eilish would not come to them, they would come to her.
Emilia Vepsalainen Ponkala (22) came straight from the airport bus with her mother Johanna to the venue on Saturday afternoon trailing a suitcase and a Swedish flag – Sweden being one of the countries Eilish is not playing in.
“I almost missed my brother’s graduation for this,” she said. “It’s hard to put it into words. I like that she is herself and encourages her fans to be themselves. I really connect with the music.”
Carolin Jungenblut (21), a German student based in Galway, and her friend Lucina Giannini (20) from the Netherlands were first in the queue arriving just after 5am. They arrived early to get a place in the pit for the concert.
Ms Jungenblut said: “I like that she has always been herself throughout her career. She does the stuff that she wants to do. She doesn’t care if people like it or not, but apparently people do like it.”
Ms Giannici is seeing nine shows on the current tour. “I agree with Carolin. She always been authentic in an industry like the one that she is in it is very hard.”
Julia Carrano came from Rome with a friend for the concert because Eilish has also left Italy off the itinerary this time around and was in the queue from 6am.
Lauren Kelly (20) has brought along a petition hoping to catch the singer’s eye on stage and present her with a letter.
In it she writes a heartfelt note to Eilish. “I can’t thank you enough for all you have done for me. You have literally saved my life.”
She left Limerick at 6am to take her place in the queue. “I feel like a weirdo, but these guys are my family. Billie is our family,” she said of her fellow eyelashes - Katie Whelan, Jake Quinn and Patrick Zbikowska.
Quinn was conspicuously one of the few men in the queue with the exception of some fathers taking their teenage daughter to the concert.
“Since I discovered Billie in 2017, I felt like an emotional connection to her. She really represented young people and that really stood out to me. The way she talks about her emotions unlocked my inner emotions and allowed me to express myself properly through her music.”
.
