Watch Halsey debut new song ‘Ego’ live at surprise intimate London KOKO gig 

15 August, 2024

Halsey performs live in 2024

Halsey has played a surprise intimate gig in London, and used the set to debut a brand new song called ‘Ego’. Check out footage below.

The show took place at KOKO in London last night (August 14), as the singer-songwriter took to the stage for a last-minute surprise set.

Halsey  – who goes by she/them pronouns – had teased the intimate show just days in advance, sharing a tweet that read: “I’m in London, and I have a surprise planned for Wednesday. Feeling reaaaaaal nostalgic about it”. The update also featured a link to a phone number which fans were able to text for updates.

Now, taking to the venue for the first time since she was promoting her ‘Badlands’ album in 2015, Halsey has used the one-off gig to debut a brand new song.

Titled ‘Ego’, the performance came shortly before Halsey wrapped up the set with renditions of ‘Experiment On Me’ and ‘Without Me’. It also arrived shortly after the singer used their set at Sziget Festival to drop a different, rock-inspired new song.

“I’ve been teasing a new song for the past couple of days. You guys are the first people in the world to hear it… lowkey even before some of the people who work at the label,” the vocalist told the crowd before breaking into the track.

“After the festival in Budapest, they were like ‘Hey, we’re not mad… but what the fuck was that?’. I was like, ‘Have you met me before? Does that sound like something that would be out of character for me to do?’ No, what you get is what you get.

“That song is coming out tomorrow night– it’s exciting right? How many of you guys were on to me and thought ‘She’s for sure going to play that new song’? You think you’re so fucking smart,” she continued. “I’m always one step ahead… Do you guys want to hear a different new song? This is new new.”

From there, the band launched into an uptempo acoustic guitar riff, with Halsey delivering some vulnerable, pop-punk-inspired lyrics about concealing deep-rooted sadness. It also seems more pop-inspired than their last album ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’.

“I’m caught up in an everyday trend/ Tied up on invisible thread/ Walking down on razors, been edged/ And I wake up tired, think I’m better off dead,” Halsey sings in the opening lines, before the song reaches the explosive chorus.

“I think that I should try to kill my ego/ ‘Cause if I don’t, my ego might kill me/ I’m all grown up but somehow lately/ I’m acting like a fucking baby/ I’m really not as happy as I seem.”

Check out more footage from the gig, as well as the full setlist below.

Halsey’s setlist at KOKO was:

‘Nightmare’
‘Castle’
‘Easier than Lying’
‘You Should Be Sad’
‘1121 – John Cunningham Demo’
‘Graveyard’
‘Lucky’
‘Colors’
‘Hurricane’
‘The Lighthouse’
‘honey’
‘Bad at Love’
‘3am’
‘Closer’ (The Chainsmokers cover)
‘Hold Me Down’
‘I am Not a Woman, I’m a God’
‘Gasoline’
‘Ego’ (Live debut – Unreleased)
‘Experiment on Me’
‘Without Me’

As aforementioned, the new song Halsey played in London follows on from the live debut of another track that made its way into their Sziget Festival setlist.

That one was played over the soundsystem between Halsey’s main set and encore at the Budapest festival on August 8, and saw the singer reportedly say “For every Halsey pop song, there’s a Halsey rock song. I feel like I should be able to do both.”

The same Hungarian festival set also saw the singer play their latest single, the Britney-sampling ‘Lucky’, for the first time ever. Recently, she said she was “really nervous” about clearing the sample on the song, and said she “shared everything” with the singer throughout the creative process.

It came after Spears appeared to claim that she felt “harassed, violated and bullied” by their new video.

In a since-deleted post, Spears threatened legal action against Halsey and called her “downright cruel”, however, later walked back on the statement on X/Twitter, writing: “Fake news !!! That was not me on my phone !!! I love Halsey and that’s why I deleted it!!!”

In response, Halsey said: “I love Britney!!!! I always have and always will you were the first person who ever made me realise what it means to feel inspired. And you continue to inspire me everyday.”

Halsey has also teased that their new album will be “all over the place” and “full of experimentation”, and opened up about their “complex feelings” after suffering a miscarriage during a show in 2015.

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