On Thursday evening I headed to the O2 Arena for the first London date of Hilary Duff’s The Lucky Me tour, which is currently touring internationally. Hilary Duff’s music and the Lizzie McGuire TV series were a huge part of my childhood and when the tour was announced earlier this year, I was in disbelief that we’d finally get to hear the artist perform live again after so many years. Skip forward to this week and we were treated to nearly 2 hours of Duff’s iconic hits from the past 20+ years, ending with the emotional and nostalgic anthem ‘What Dreams Are Made Of’. Whilst not my usual theatre content, I wanted to acknowledge this incredible experience on the website, sharing some photos from an unforgettable evening.
A fan first experience
Supported by La Roux as the opening act, Duff appeared on stage at about 8:45pm to roaring applause and spent the whole evening thanking the audience for helping to make this tour happen. The setlist was full of crowd pleasers, including early hits such as ‘So Yesterday’, ‘Come Clean’ and ‘Why Not’, but there were also some recent releases too, including ‘Roommates’ and ‘Weather for Tennis’. Every creative decision had the fans’ best interest at heart and there was barely an empty seat in the house. A highlight was the audience interaction segment where members of the crowd were brought up on stage to join Duff for the viral ‘With Love’ dance. Some of them had outfits nodding to Duff’s career and this was a theme across the O2, with people having come dressed in themed outfits for the occasion. We wanted to honour The Lizzie McGuire Movie most of all, so my sister, friend and I wore matching ‘Sing to me Paolo’ t-shirts, alongside Y2K era inspired earrings, fun sunglasses and choker necklaces.
Emotional and heartfelt
Throughout the evening you could really tell how much the experience meant to both Duff and the fans. Video clips were projected onto the O2 Arena screens in the interludes, featuring memories from the artist’s time filming with Disney to recent family experiences and stepping back into the recording studio for the ‘Luck… or Something’ album. If I were to summarise the overall experience in a word, it’d be nostalgia, as Duff managed to both fully embrace her early years in the spotlight, whilst also showing who she is now and what inspired the return to music. The concert wrapped up with a balloon and confetti-filled rendition of ‘What Dreams Are Made Of’, with the whole audience joining in for a giant sing-along.
A truly magical evening from start to finish, getting to see Hilary Duff in concert was something that I never would have expected to happen at the beginning of 2026. Life is full of wonderful surprises sometimes though and it is definitely one of my highlights of the year so far.
Comments