When Billie Eilish and her older brother wrote the song “I Love You”, they did so while sitting on Eilish’s bed at 3 am. It was then recorded in Finneas’ bedroom studio in Los Angeles. Therefore, when Eilish played the track at a sold-out Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in July 2019, it was only fitting that the siblings performed it while sitting on a bed with a mocked-up starry night behind them.
Before playing the track, which appeared on her debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”, Eilish told the crowd, “This song we’re about to do is one of our favourites we’ve ever written.” And so it proved as the Alt-Pop phenomenon, still just seventeen years old at the time, gave a moving rendition of the song. The video of it was released the following month and has now been viewed over 54 million times on YouTube.
As the lights went down, thousands of people in the audience held up the torches on their phones to add to the stars that were being shined onto the stage. Wearing her customary green Gucci set with matching neon locks, Eilish began the song by singing in the same gentle tones that she presumably did when first writing it in the middle of the night. Next to her, Finneas plucked at his guitar and leant towards his sister’s microphone to give hushed backing vocals.
During the song’s crescendo, audience members could be seen with tears streaming down their faces, singing passionately along. At this point, the bed – suspended on strings – began to rise higher and higher. In the background, a giant glowing moon appeared, completing the vision of a peaceful night full of imagination and wonder.
Finally, as the song was coming to an end, the bed gently lowered back down to the stage. The siblings continued to sing in ghostly tones even as the stage lights turned off, and the audience just about contained themselves until the very end before becoming a wall of screams.
Billie Eilish’s debut album was released less than four months before this performance, but its instant success had already propelled the teenager into a global superstar. The album reached number 1 in many countries, including the US and Canada. In the UK, Eilish became the youngest-ever female solo act to have a chart-topping album. Eilish went on to win an astonishing six Grammy Awards at the 2020 ceremony, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year for “Bad Guy”. Finneas won the award for Producer of the Year, demonstrating his integral part in the album’s success.