Hilary Duff’s comeback tour was absolutely worth the wait

Before this year’s “luck… or something,” Hilary Duff hadn’t released a new record in more than a decade, and hadn’t toured in almost two decades. Though, based on the roaring, nearly sold-out stop of The Lucky Me Tour at Toyota Music Factory on Tuesday night, you’d be forgiven for thinking no time had passed at all.

“That feels a little bit scary but super exciting,” the Texas native admitted to the crowd about her return to music. 

Duff charmed her way into the early 2000s zeitgeist as a child actor, most notably as the instantly-relatable Lizzie McGuire, before quickly stacking up pop earworms on early records like “Metamorphosis” and “Most Wanted.” Tuesday night, she reminded North Texas how she laid the foundation for the Disney actor-to-pop-star pipeline that so many followed long after.

From under a giant disco ball and atop plush pink stairs, Duff emerged around 9:15 p.m. to applause that had been waiting to thunder for 18 years, when she last toured for 2007’s “Dignity.”

Even in her absence as a pop purveyor, though, her hits never dissolved with the times. Her now-viral performance of “With Love” on “The Today Show” (which, funny enough, happened 19 years ago, almost to the day, of Tuesday night’s show) gets regular mileage all over TikTok. Halfway through The Lucky Me Tour’s setlist, she nods to that meme-able legacy by picking audience members to join her on the stage for the dance break. On Tuesday, that included four fans, one of which was dressed like her Wendy the Good Witch character from 1998’s “Casper Meets Wendy.”

Every direction of the crowd was drizzled with sequin skirts, gem-toned butterfly clips and looks inspired by Duff’s many TV and movie roles; the two concertgoers immediately to our left were in green and pink looks inspired by Duff’s dual roles in “The Lizzie McGuire Movie.”

Early on in the show, though, it became easy to ignore just how rapidly time has passed since the days of “Laguna Beach” marathons, thanks to the transcendent energy radiating throughout the venue. That crowd stepped into a technicolor time machine, and Duff was unafraid to take us back to the beginning, if you will. However, she did so with a sense of wisdom and comfort with being more settled into her musicianship at 38. A touching moment came after she turned a handheld, home-video-style camera on the audience for 2005’s “Beat of My Heart,” which was followed by a video montage spanning her own childhood footage, from toddler to the teen that felt like every millennial’s longtime friend.

There’s also something to be said for a catalog of hits so deep – even with a decade of dormancy – that nothing is truly forced to be held hostage toward the end of the setlist. Duff came out swinging on Tuesday, opening the show with “Wake up,” a cheeky testament to her long pop pedigree.

What struck us most, though, is that, although it was clear the mostly millennial crowd had a cathartic and perhaps even escapist yearning for the quintessence of Y2K that Duff represents, most of them knew all the words to her latest material. And she noticed.

“It’s such a fun collision of the old and new,” she said.

The fun collision was contagious. The sing-alongs to new songs like “Roommates” and “Mature” rivaled early discography peaks like “Fly” and “Why Not.” In fact, our favorite moment of the entire set came during the sugar-hooked “Future Tripping,” a deep cut from the new record. 

“If I have been lucky enough to soundtrack any version of your life, it’s a true honor,” Duff said before taking us back with 2003’s “Anywhere But Here.” 

So yes, the crowd was there to chase the nostalgia that defined their generation, and Duff leaned in with elation – using a drumstick, she mimed the “you’re watching Disney Channel” Mickey Mouse head logo wave. But what we saw beyond that was a shared voracity for the promise of Duff’s second act as a pop star, one who grew up in front of quite literally everyone’s eyes, but is a more confident and liberated version of herself who deserves a new era to match.

Duff’s excitement to be home was palpable, too. During “So Yesterday,” her background visuals beamed with a neon pink outline of Texas that read “everything is bigger in Texas,” a nod to the song’s music video.  

“My Texas people…. it’s hot,” she said at one point during the show. “It’s so nice to be back home in Texas. My kids are all here. There’s nothing like showing your kids where you came from.”

And it is fun to claim her as one of our own, yes, but the true welcome home was on the stage, and after last night’s show, we really hope she doesn’t wait another 10 years to drop by again.