NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
What more can I say about the ethereal being we call AURORA that I haven’t previously said? I’ve been covering her shows for several years now and the last one at Terminal 5 in NYC back in November was one of her best! Since then, she has released her latest album “The Gods We Can Touch”, inspired by Greek mythology, with each song representing a different god. Some of these singles were already released starting in 2020 and the full album was released this January. The only challenge for me is buying multiple versions of the record to make sure I have all the songs.
Opening for Aurora on this tour is 21 year old singer/songwriter Sub Urban (aka Daniel Virgil Maisonneuve) from Nyack, NY. He quit high school when he was 16 which didn’t thrill his French Canadian dad and Taiwanese mother. But he proved them wrong when his song “Cradles” went viral on TikTok.
Sub Urban’s set was fast paced and had a dark but urgent feel to it. He did tell a funny story about how his tour van was stopped at the border for marijuana but was let go with a warning. In speaking with his crew, they confirmed that they were indeed stopped for around two hours! It didn’t stop Sub Urban from delivering a high energy set that had the audience bouncing and dancing!
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Aurora’s stage setup was a little different from the NYC show last November. Back then. It was extremely simple with just Aurora on stage with no backup singers. This time, her new backup singer Amalie Holt Kleive provides beautiful female vocals and the scenery is a moon rising over the water. The colors are extremely vivid with Aurora often just a silhouette in front of that backdrop like the Selene, the Greek goddess of the full moon. One can tell how captive the audience is by the background noise. Often, when a performer is singing a soft song, you can hear the chatter of conversations. However, when Aurora sang “Infections of a Different Kind”, you could hear a pin drop. It was truly amazing to see.
The setlist was comprised of 8 songs from her latest record “The Gods We Can Touch”, 3 songs from her debut LP “All My Demons…” and 4 songs from her “Infections…/A Different Kind…” albums. Kleive joined her in the middle of the stage for “Everything Matter”, which is a duet with French singer Pomme on he record.
Aurora often chatted with the crowd in between songs, sometimes being very serious about caring for the environment/the Earth and denying apathy, and making sure you love yourself because every single person is unique and beautiful. She was very funny when she talked about happiness and noted that there’s no “me” in happiness but there is a “piness”! Sound it out. She’s is too adorable!! Then as she sang “The Seed” with the lyric “you can’t eat money, oh no”, fans were throwing money in the air. It turned out a fan had made a lot of $50 CDN with Aurora’s photo and had handed them out to the crowd before the show.
Aurora showed how much she cared for her fans when she stopped singing during “A Dangerous Thing” to make sure a fan, who was feeling faint, was ok. she said it was definitely very hot in the venue and her dress was “in her butt”. How can you not love her?
She closed out the show with a rousing rendition of “Giving in to the Love” and apologized for her voice not being very good that night. Many fans I spoke to had no idea what she was talking about as she sounded wonderful. As I left the arena, there were fans hanging near the tour bus hoping to meet Aurora. The tour manager and security said that she had left the venue immediately after the show but these fans were firm in their resolve to meet their idol. I hope they were successful.
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