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(Photo via Brooklyn Vegan)

At a sold out show at Roseland Ballroom on a cold, windy, rainy night in New York City, about 3500 people stuck their middle fingers up in the air and sung “Fuck You” as loud as they could in Lily Allen’s direction. No one was thinking about their wet socks or the broken umbrella they’d need to replace in order to get home. This was the climax in what ended up being one of the best shows I’ve been to in years.

Before she went into the catchy It’s Not Me, It’s You track, Lily Allen (who will here in after be referred to as Lily because Allen sounds weird) asked the crowd, “Can you see my nipples?”. I could hear a friend behind me say to herself, “Um, yeah we can. I knew she wasn’t wearing a bra.” It was the last of 3 layers that Lily had taken off through-out the course of the night. She was left in a see-through tank top, shorts, leggings, and a white pair of Nikes. She was exposed and uninhibited. But it wasn’t like this at first.

Lily Allen seemed almost reluctant to take over the crowd when she came out at around 9:30 to “Everyone’s At It.” A white sheet covered the stage and the band projected tall shadows, a bigness that disappeared as soon as the sheet dropped. Covering herself in a baggy sweatshirt with the hood up, Lily seemed somewhat subdued, and a bit isolated on the stage – but it was all very charming, likable, and possibly intentional. The singer said very little between songs, going right into one of It’s Not Me’s more mellow tracks, “I Could Say.” It came off with a bit more energy live than on the record, but it seemed an odd choice for the second song. I realize looking back that I was being set up for an escalating night of awesomeness.

The first layer came off, and the energy built up a bit as Lily and her talented live band plowed through the beginning half of the set, which included an acoustic version of “He Wasn’t There,” “Back to the Start,” “Him,” and the Mark Ronson collab, “Oh My God.” Lily could have stumbled around on stage, spilling drinks and slurring words, and everyone in this Perez Hilton, Twitter beef age would have left the venue happy. Instead, her voice sounded amazing (despite her apologies for feeling under the weather), her on stage banter was funny and engaging, and each song was bigger and better than the one before it.

After a cheesecake eating contest (in which the grand prize was another slice of cheesecake), a story about missing her mother (which completely changed the meaning of “Chinese” and almost brought me to tears), and an R-rated intro to “Not Fair” (that even made the security guard in the sound booth next to me laugh uncontrollably), Lily Allen owned all 3500 people in that venue. They were hers.

My only complaint is that she did not do the song about her stoner little brother, “Alfie,” considering the 4/20 celebrations that were happening at the show (particularly, the 5 hyper 16 year olds right in front of us who had a little too much fun). She did, however, throw in a short interlude of “Day N Nite” – a remix of the remix, and gave many a shout-out to the lonely stoners in the crowd.

By the time the encore rolled around, Lily had stripped down all her layers, and her band were as big as the shadows they projected in the beginning of the night. Even the woman behind us holding her 4 year old daughter sung along with the crowd to “Fuck You.” Alright, Still’s “Smile” and an upbeat version of her “Womanizer” cover ended the set with a bang. Lily stomped around the stage in her sneakers, cigarette in hand; a feisty 23 year old with the electricity of a veteran pop star. Like her albums and Lily Allen herself, the show was a lot of fucking fun. Unfortunately, I walked out the door and remembered my wet socks.