Lizzo lights up LCA, reflects on Detroit roots in biggest homecoming show of her career

Late in an otherwise brisk, exuberant show Thursday at a sold-out Little Caesars Arena, Lizzo pumped the brakes to get serious for a few minutes.

“It’s emotional, being in the place you were born, being in the place where your roots began, being in the place of some of my loved ones who I wish were here,” she said from the stage. The pop star then choked up as she remembered her late father, Michael Jefferson, who died in 2009.

The singer and cultural force born Melissa Jefferson was a 10-year-old when she and her immediate family left the Motor City for Texas. But scanning LCA on Thursday, she saluted all the “Kirkwoods, Johnsons and Jeffersons” out in the crowd, exclaiming: “My family all over the place!”

“The feeling that I have is indescribable, (coming) back to Detroit,” Lizzo said. “You can take the girl out Detroit. But you can’t take the Detroit out the girl.”

Thursday’s homecoming concert, landing in the second week of her Special Tour, was the singer’s most prominent Detroit show yet. It followed a private Wednesday gig for 500 fans at Saint Andrew’s Hall, recorded for SiriusXM, and it came more than three years after Lizzo’s last public Detroit concerts — a pair of memorable visits in 2019 amid her Grammy-winning rise to fame.

The Special Tour production is a major step up from Lizzo’s 2019 outings. Thursday brought a sleek and glossy affair, full of smoke and lasers on a stage crisply lined with LED neon lighting, augmented with a catwalk and backed by a giant video disc.

Seemingly recovered from the cold that had dogged her leading into Wednesday’s club show, the 34-year-old singer-songwriter was in fine voice and full of cheery vigor at LCA, where she was greeted by a young, committed, mostly female audience happy to match her energy step for step.

Save for a couple of downbeat musical moments midway through the show, the mood was gleeful and often gushingly exuberant. Lizzo tossed red roses to fans and turned up the house lights to single out concertgoers across the arena. The capacity crowd gave the love right back: Each coy flip of the hips, each cheeky twerk, each choreographed dance sequence prompted an outburst of piercing shrieks.

As always with Lizzo, messages of personal dignity were prevalent on a night she called a “self-love fest.” That spirit was reflected in numbers such as the vocal showcase “Special” and infectious “Good as Hell,” and emphatically driven home with a mantra she implored fans to tell themselves: “I love you. You are beautiful. And you can do anything.”

The 105-minute show featured multiple costume changes following Lizzo's entrance in a magenta-accented bodysuit, and she was festively accompanied by her nine-member Big Grrrls dance troupe, hard-working five-piece band and a pair of backing singers.

Lizzo’s signature sing-songy numbers — “Cuz I Love You,” “Truth Hurts,” “Grrrls” — were sprinkled amid a musically versatile set that included the effervescence of “Birthday Girl,” the ‘70s club homage of “Everybody’s Gay,” the ‘80s thrum of “I Love You Bitch,” the slinky grind of “Rumors” and the hair-thrashing rock edge of “Boys.”

She broke out her customary flute a handful of times late in the evening while loading up the back end of the show with her heavy hitters. “Cuz I Love You,” “Truth Hurts,” “Good As Hell” and “Juice” helped bring things to a frothy finish that ultimately was punctuated by the ecstatic, fluttering disco of “About Damn Time.”

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lizzo lights up LCA, reflects on Detroit roots in big homecoming show