I feel like I’d been waiting a lifetime for this tour to come around. In 2016, a friend gave me a choice of seeing either Halsey or Twenty One Pilots live, I evidently chose Halsey and managed to get barrier for the Badlands tour.
When Back To Badlands was announced, I knew I had to be there. To think I was a teenager, running a Tumblr account and being moody 10 years ago, I fit right in, and I suppose not much has changed, I now just run a blog and have been diagnosed with a plethora of mental illnesses.

Halsey has been an artist I consistently go back to, I have thoroughly enjoyed every album release, commemorated so many songs with tattoos, from ‘Castle’, to ‘Girl Is a Gun’, ‘Alone’ & ‘Easier Than Lying’. I do not play when it comes to getting tattoos for my favourite artists and songs, I just have to spend my days praying they don’t get seriously cancelled – laser removal is pricey.
Anyway, the visuals were insane. We were being shown stories, traveling across dirt roads, visiting motels and diners, it all just came together in such a fascinating way, and it was certainly something I’ve never seen done before. The 3D aspect was also impressive, it has been years since I have worn those cardboard red and blue glasses, they’re a lost art – thank God, Halsey’s bringing them back, even just for a moment.

Badlands was played in its entirety (minus ‘I Walk The Line’), along with a few songs from every other album… that made the show much longer than I imagined. Speaking of, going into the show blind, was wild. I was expecting a standard 1.5 hour show, mostly Badlands plus a few hits, I had no idea about the encore section being audience voted, no idea Badlands would be played fully, and truly no idea how many other songs we’d get. I was in shock, in awe.
She knows how to perform, this is maybe the 4th time I’ve seen Halsey live, and each time she has blown me away. But this, this was next level, you could see the extra passion, care and love that went into this, all of which took it from the standard 1.5 hour show with fun sets, to a fully immersive experience that lasted nearly 2.5 hours by the time she came off stage.

Setlist: February 1st
Gasoline
Castle
Control
Bells In Santa Fe
Drive
Coming Down
You Should Be Sad
The Lighthouse
Strange Love
Haunting
New Americana
Hurricane
Dog Years
Nightmare
Hold Me Down
Ghost
Roman Holiday
Closer
Ego
Colors
Only Living Girl In LA
Lonely Is The Muse
People Disappear Here
Without Me
Young God
Trouble
Seaside (The Kooks cover)
Naive (with Luke from The Kooks)
Honey
Heaven In Hiding
Is There Somewhere

I’d heard rumours that attending a show with the original Badlands 2016 tour passport, meant you could get early entry to a 2026 show. I wasn’t sure how true it was, but I took it anyway to try my luck, and it worked. I arrived at about 5.30pm and got stamped and given a wristband, and was able to go in. A small group of “veterans” (as they called themselves), took me under their wing as a solo concertgoer and we ended up about 3 rows from barrier. It was fantastic, I really can’t fault it, one of the most engaging and bewitching shows I’ve ever been to.