Five years ago, who would have believed that Lily Allen could sell out New York City’s Radio City Music Hall for a performance of an entirely new album—and nothing else. No “Smile”; no “F—k You”; not one of her ‘00s/’10s hits; heck, not even an encore.
That’s not to diss the English singer-songwriter: most artists who’ve been around for two decades have an uphill battle when it comes to getting longtime listeners interested in the new material. Fans buy concert tickets to hear the nostalgic hits of yesteryear and use the new songs as time for a bathroom break; if an artist is lucky, they might score a couple of songs per new album that genuinely get the crowd riled.
Plus, over the last decade, Allen had mostly made Stateside headlines for her personal life (she married Stranger Things actor David Harbour in 2020, splitting up last year), not her music (her 2018 album remains her lowest-charting LP on the Billboard 200).
All of which is to say that the Lily Allen career comeback of the last half-year is something no one (even Allen herself, it seems) saw coming. And it’s all the sweeter for coming out of nowhere, despite the messy, bitter fodder that yielded her critically acclaimed 2025 album about the disillusionment of being in a relationship with someone you can’t trust and the dissolution of that marriage.
On Tuesday (April 14), Allen sold out Radio City to deliver that album, West End Girl, start to finish, as a one-woman show concert. No backing band, no backup dancers, no backup singers (the album’s sole guest, Specialist Moss, appeared via video screen). And as previously mentioned, no encore—anyone who wants to hear her retro hits will have to catch Allen’s upcoming North American arena tour, which kicks off Sept. 3 in NYC’s Madison Square Garden.
Despite the lack of “Smile,” the mostly millennial crowd was beaming as they left Radio City on Tuesday night, because they got exactly what they wanted: a potent, succinct performance of Allen’s mid-career masterpiece.
Here are five highlights from Lily Allen’s West End Girl show at Radio City Music Hall.
