Dua Lipa Future Nostalgia Tour Turns It Up Loud in Las Vegas: Concert Review

You want to turn it up loud, Dua Lipa is the name. Lipa’s Future Nostalgia Tour visited Vegas on Friday (March 25), transforming T-Mobile Arena into a retro-futuristic club scene as the pop superstar played timeless tracks from her Grammy-winning album of the same name. When announcing her sophomore record and accompanying arena tour in 2019, Lipa said she was en route to Las Vegas when she envisioned the direction of Future Nostalgia: “Something that felt nostalgic but had something fresh and futuristic about it too.” The tour stop feels akin to a homecoming, as Lipa performed “Don’t Start Now” and other smash hits live in Las Vegas for the first time.

“I hope it brings you some happiness, and I hope it makes you smile, and I hope it makes you dance,” Lipa said of the anticipated album released during the early weeks of COVID-19 in March 2020. Postponed three times due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Future Nostalgia Tour is a cathartic, cheering release of pent-up energy that makes you happy, makes you smile, and definitely makes you dance (your ass off, as Lipa sings in the chart-topping TikTok favorite “Levitating”). 

If Future Nostalgia the album’s unskippable earworms are the nu-disco soundtrack to dance floor nights out with friends, the live version is the ultimate expression of escapist entertainment. The Future Nostalgia Tour is stylish, sultry, and sexy, powered by Lipa’s commanding presence as a performer: she catwalks, crawls, slinks, and struts across the stage with the swagger of the female alpha Lipa says she is on the title track.

The 19-song setlist of mostly upbeat, clubby bops sees the stage shape-shift into a dance floor to echo the music videos for “Don’t Start Now” and “Levitating” as Lipa surrounds herself with high-energy dancers and neon-colored roller skaters. A “Club Future Nostalgia Medley” segues into a remixed Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” literally jumping into the ’90s-style house hit “One Kiss” before exploding into electropop dancefloor banger “Electricity.” After a trippy, vaporwave version of “Hallucinate,” Elton John collab “Cold Heart” gives way to a smashing hat trick of “Levitating,” “Future Nostalgia,” and “Don’t Start Now.” 

“Vegas, thank you for having us tonight. Hopefully, I’ll be back soon,” the hitmaker told the cheering crowd of Lipa Loves to end the show. That future can’t come soon enough. 

Set list:

1. “Physical”
2. “New Rules”
3. “Love Again”
4. “Cool”
5. “Pretty Please”
6. “Break My Heart”
7. “Be the One”
8. “We’re Good”
9. “Good in Bed”
10. “Fever”
11. “Boys Will Be Boys”
12. “Club Future Nostalgia Medley”
13. “One Kiss”
14. “Electricity”
15. “Hallucinate”
16. “Cold Heart”
17. “Levitating”
18. “Future Nostalgia”
19. “Don’t Start Now”

The North American leg of the Future Nostalgia Tour continues with stops in Portland (March 29), Seattle (March 31), and Vancouver (April 1) before continuing overseas with dates through November 2022. Visit the Dua Lipa official tour site or TicketMaster to purchase tickets.