Billie Eilish's meteoric rise keeps burning in overdue St. Paul arena debut

Going from making music in her bedroom to performing it in arenas in just five short years would be an impressive feat under any circumstances.

Billie Eilish's journey to Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday night, however, seemed downright supernatural when you consider that two of those years were eaten up by a pandemic that shut down the concert industry. What's more, she just celebrated her 20th birthday three months ago.

Oh, and one more despite-all-that detail that was hit home Tuesday: She's already unequivocally one of the best in the game; maybe the most important pop star under the age of 32 (Taylor Swift's age).

The Los Angeles singer with the ever-changing hair color (jet-black this time) and rapidly evolving songwriting style, Eilish was a confident and colorful performer even when she made her local debut at tiny 7th St. Entry in 2018 — probably the biggest wish-I'd-been-there gig of the 21st century in the Twin Cities. A year later, she positively thrilled a sold-out crowd of 8,000 fans at the Armory in Minneapolis.

So her ability to take on a full-capacity hockey arena was never in doubt. What was questionable was the fact that the songs from last year's album "Happier Than Ever" (her second) don't sound very happy at all. A lot of the new material is rather quiet and intimate for a venue with an in-house foghorn.

Lucky for Eilish, that's where it comes in handy having a sold-out crowd of 15,000-plus mostly young and excited fans — all of whom have been cooped up for way too long and were eager to sing out every word to every song. Earplugs were needed more for the audience than the speakers' output during the 105-minute set.

After jumping up from under the stage and jump-starting the mayhem to the tune of "Bury a Friend," Eilish didn't lose one iota of the crowd's attentiveness as she pivoted to "Therefore I Am" and "NDA," a couple of the sleepier, insomnia-tinged tunes from the new album. In each one, fans nearly drowned out Eilish's more hushed voice with their own.

She certainly did not discourage them to join in.

"Two rules tonight," she said near the start. "You're not allowed to judge anybody here, not allowed to be [a jerk]. And the main rule: Have some [bleeping] fun."

During the most overtly fun, peppier songs, Eilish must've gotten in about 20,000 steps on her Fitbit. She constantly ran up and down the long runway and into the ends of her triangular-shaped stage, where her brother Finneas stood in one corner playing keyboards and guitar opposite drummer Andrew Marshall (doing quite stellar work in his corner, by the way).

The stage was surprisingly minimal. The lighting was "Blade Runner-y" understated. But the video backdrop behind it all was mammoth and cleverly used.

During "NDA," the screen turned into a highway with cars swerving out of the singer's way. In "You Should See Me in a Crown" she was stalked by a giant spider. Old home movies of a young (younger!) Eilish were showed during the sweet ballad "Getting Older." A lot of the video imagery fit the eerie dreamscape tone and memories-haunted themes in many of her songs.

Considering how many cheers and singalongs those dreamier and more somber songs were able to ignited — especially "Your Power" during the mid-concert acoustic segment and the show finale "Happier Than Ever" — you can imagine how heated things got during the more electronically spazzy and manically sung tunes, all strategically spread out through the show.

Fans might still be sore from jumping around to the show's penultimate song "Bad Guy" the next time Eilish comes to town. Considering her trajectory so far, there's a stadium or three here with her name on it.