Hilary Duff's London show was pure nostalgia with fan favorites and her viral "With Love" dance moment.
LAS VEGAS - Pop music is ephemeral by nature.
So when the rare welcome - and successful - resurrection occurs, it's all the more reason to celebrate.
Hilary Duff is having one of those moments when everything clicks.
Her primarily millennial fans are rabid to see her in concert. Her first album in more than a decade, "Luck ... or Something," releases Feb. 20. And after this weekend of sold-out shows at Voltaire at The Venetian and a return May 22-24, Duff will hit amphitheaters and arenas in June for The Lucky Me Tour, her first world outing in nearly 20 years.
Duff's performance Friday, Feb. 13 at the 1,000-capacity opulent venue-lounge was part of her Small Rooms, Big Nerves Tour, which hit four major cities, including London and New York, before landing for this trio of shows in Vegas.
Even with an extensive acting background, the nerves mentioned in her tour name are understandable. It's one thing to be revered as an early aughts Disney Channel breakout on "Lizzy McGuire" and continue a notable acting career with star turns in "Younger" and "How I Met Your Father."
It's an entirely different set of neurons to command a stage with assurance and scamper down a catwalk, interact with fans a few inches away and remind people that you can sing.
Duff's effervescent set denotated with "Wake Up," her five-piece band eagerly pogo-ing behind her, and didn't decelerate for 80 minutes. Even the '00s-blueprint ballad "Someone's Watching Over Me," recorded both for Duff's 2004 self-titled album and "Raise Your Voice," a film in which she starred that same year, rippled with energy.
Possessing a voice perfectly suited for earworm pop songs such as "So Yesterday," Duff, 38, looked thoroughly gleeful as she bopped around the stage and grinned at fans as her sun-kissed blond hair fluttered behind her.
In her sleeveless silver jumpsuit, Duff - who is also a mom of four - was visibly appreciative of the crowd reception blasted her direction.
"This is so fun!," she declared before the new song, "Roommates," a thoughtful, occasionally NSFW bop about a staid relationship.
While Duff's acolytes are thrilled merely to be in her orbit again regardless of what she is singing, Duff made sure to douse them with plenty of spirited throwbacks.
"Metamorphosis" and "Fly" pulsed, while "My Kind" triggered uninhibited joy.
Though Duff was never as dance-focused as some of her peers, she can move, evidenced during "With Love," the most meme-able song in this handful of shows. Duff invited a couple onstage to arm pump and tip hips, which was a fun moment in itself, but capped with a bended knee proposal (he said yes).
Duff is to be applauded for mounting this return to a career that yielded five albums between 2003 and 2015. She, too, is aware of the implausibility of revisiting the music stage, telling the crowd, "It's not lost on me that we can all be together tonight."
Duff also acknowledged the maturation of a fan base that likely fell in love with her as impressionable teens, noting before "Why Not" that, "I hope you're still taking chances."
Do Duff's songs burrow with profound literary genius? Nope, and so what? Pop music done well - as exhibited by the glossy bath of frivolity known as "Future Trippin'," and the musical fairy dust of "Sparks" - is plenty meaningful for fans. Let's allow them - and Duff - their joy.