Lizzo delivers on her big appeal at first of three nights at the Palladium

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Lizzo at the Palladium (Photo by Jeff Miller)

By JEFF MILLER

It’s hard to imagine that less than a year ago Lizzo was a mostly obscure, hard-working mid-level musician. When she appeared on the Coachella poster in January, she wasn’t even notable enough to push up to the top three lines of her day’s lineup.

Now, of course, is a different story: Bolstered by an incredible major label debut, “Cuz I Love You,” a smash-summer hit in “Truth Hurts” and an incredibly timely and powerful message of self-love that comes off as entirely honest in Lizzo’s ever-humble (yet still powerfully confident) hands, she’s become a bona fide generational superstar. (If she were on a new Coachella poster that came out right now, it’s hard to imagine her in anything other than the headline spot). To wit: Tickets for Friday’s night’s sold-out concert — her first L.A. performance in two years and the first of three dates at the Palladium, a massive venue that in retrospect is about one-quarter the size of the arenas she could have sold out on this run — were going for $500 the day before the show on StubHub. That’s a jaw-dropping price usually reserved for Boomer-legends like the Stones and the Eagles, not a millennial soul-singer/rapper/flautist on a victory lap.

But Lizzo’s appeal is so wide, her everyone-is-welcome vibe so big, it’s not really a surprise. The Palladium was packed with a rare cross-cultural and cross-generational melting-pot audience that included 10-year-old kids, 50-something straight couples, 20-something gay couples, girls-night-out crews, guy-hangs, black, white, brown, Asian … You name it. As Lizzo said during her catchy, rolling pop number “Like a Girl” — her whatever-gender-you-identify-with-you’re-welcome-here speech — “Bitch, you do you.”

To call her the voice of a generation seems a bit premature, but is it? There’s no more of-the-moment artist than Lizzo, and the millennials that made up the bulk of the audience cheered the loudest during the be-proud-of-whomever-you-are moments that have made Lizzo an unabashed icon: her plus-sized body twerking proudly during “Boys,” her stand-up-for-yourself-’cause-no-one-else-will-do-it-for-you bouncer “Soulmate,” and, most notably, a mid-set meditation break, with all 3,500 audience members taking a big collective breath and stretch to the sky all at once.

It’s going to be interesting to see what’s next for Lizzo: There are at least four songs on “Cuz I Love You” that could (and should) be as big as “Truth Hurts,” and maintaining charismatic humility once true stardom hits is a balancing act not everyone can pull off. It would be great to see her tour with a live band at some point. As her recent Tiny Desk Concert for NPR proved, her groove is let loose when there’s room for instruments. But no matter what’s next, there’s no doubt Lizzo will own it: When you’re most famous for being 100% that bitch, there’s not much of a choice.