Dua Lipa, the pop superstar, recently celebrated her 30th birthday—an existential milestone for any person, let alone for someone who has been a regular on the charts and on the lips of music fans worldwide for a decade.
But at the end of her main set at Atlanta, GA’s State Farm Arena on Sunday, as she has throughout the tour, she called the crowd’s attention to another round-numbered anniversary: Dua’s second-ever single, “Be the One”, which has served as an emotional climax to her Radial Optimism Tour sets for more than a year, will turn ten years old in October. She spoke about how the song has seen her grow up, how she’s seen her fans grow up alongside her in the ten years since its release, how she’ll continue to sing it for the rest of her life.
I’ll admit that I wasn’t familiar with “Be the One” before she performed it at the end of her show, a two-hour set comprised predominantly of hits so big you probably know them even if you don’t know they’re Dua Lipa songs. But to hear her perform it for a sold-out arena in the States at age 30 is to consider just how foundational she has become to mainstream music and culture in the ensuing decade.
So the story goes, when the song’s authors/her friends Lucy Taylor, Digital Farm Animals, and Jack Tarrant offered “Be the One” to Dua to record as a nearly-20-year-old with no releases to her name, she quickly fell in love with the song. In a way, its lyrical refrain and determined energy captured the young artist’s superstar ambitions—her radical optimism: “Let me get to know you / Just another chance so that I can show / That I won’t let you down and run… ‘Cause I could be the one.” Still, she was initially reluctant to record it because she didn’t write it herself.
She eventually relented and recorded “Be the One”, and after a middling release as a single in 2015, it was picked up by German radio in 2016 and rode that momentum to Top 10 chart success in Lipa’s native U.K. A new pop star had arrived, ready to conquer the world.
Ten years later, with three albums to her name which she largely wrote or co-wrote herself, the 30-year-old is among the most successful and established pop stars on the global stage—a notion corroborated by the string of mega-hits that followed “Be the One” as the show’s encore (“New Rules”, “Dance the Night”, “Don’t Start Now”, and “Houdini”).
Is she the one in the world of pop? It’s tough to say, particularly in a landscape of ever-ascendant Taylors and Beyoncés, where the pop princess archetype is in a constant state of rising, falling, and reinvention, but at least this much is true: In 2025, no conversation about the most significant voices in pop music would be complete without Dua Lipa.
[Photo: Brent Goldman – Dua Lipa performs in Boston, MA, 9/9/25]
You could see her decade-long pop persistence reflected in the faces in the Atlanta crowd on Sunday—a diverse mix of ages, genders, races, and walks of life all fabulously dressed and suitably “chuffed” (Dua’s word, not ours) to get a taste of Radical Optimism in person.
How could you not be? The primary stage—with its multiple tiers, wave-shaped swells, and layers of screens—presented Dua, her band, and her teams of talented dancers in alluring arrangements. The tour setlist was stacked with ubiquitous hits, all matched with confetti, pyrotechnics, and athletic choreography.
The central, in-the-round stage provided a built-in space for intimate moments like her nightly covers of local artists (Atlanta got OutKast’s “Hey Ya” on Saturday and TLC’s “No Scrubs” on Sunday)—that is, until it burst into flames (as it did for “Love Again”) or levitated above the crowd (like on “Anything for Love”, during which Dua commanded the audience in a floor-length fur and couture jewelry).
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Speaking of that: Dua’s wardrobe—which included no less than four changes, various metallic super-hero looks, and a clear affinity for lingerie—exuded a powerful mix of strength, sex appeal, and designer fashion sense that seemed to equally enrapture attendees of all designations. (Since the tour hit the States, a “genre” of memes has popped up on social media in which a woman in the audience shows a clip of one of Dua’s jaw-dropping outfit/choreography combinations and notes, “I thought my boyfriend got me these Dua Lipa concert tickets as a nice gift. Now, I think we’re in a fight.”)
And yet, despite the abundance of “goddess” energy emanating from her stage, the word “diva” would feel like something of a slight for this star: If anything, the most endearing element to the Dua Lipa mystique is just how human and down-to-Earth she has managed to remain. At one point during the performance, she went down to the rail to banter with a couple of children, or hug a fan holding a sign. Later, she grabbed someone’s phone who was filming from the front row and proceed to take a selfie video for the ages for that one lucky attendee.
[Photo: Brent Goldman – Dua Lipa performs in Boston, MA, 9/9/25]
Where many classic pop “divas” revel in their untouchability, a strangely approachable allure shines through Dua Lipa’s on-paper diva bona fides. When you watch her dance, hear her deep, booming voice, feel her presence onstage, there’s no denying that she is a generational pop talent—but for whatever reason, she feels more relatable than most. The notion that “we would totally be friends in real life” is common among fans. It’s hard not to feel it when you witness it yourself.
At Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism Tour, it doesn’t matter if you’re a day-one, “Be the One”-era fan, or you found Dua via one of her U.S. breakout smashes like “New Rules” or “Levitating” (as I did), or you got on the training plan with 2024’s Radical Optimism smashes, or you’re simply Dua-curious. If you like to have fun, Dua could be is the one.
Dua Lipa will continue the U.S. stretch of her Radical Optimism Tour this week with a four-show stint and New York, NY’s Madison Square Garden. Find primary tickets to upcoming Dua Lipa tour dates here. You can also see what’s available on the secondary market here.
Below, check out a selection of videos from the Atlanta show and view a gallery of photos from last week’s show at Boston, MA’s TD Garden via photographer Brent Goldman.
Setlist: Dua Lipa | State Farm Arena | Atlanta, GA | 9/14/25
Set: Training Season, End of an Era, Break My Heart, One Kiss, Whatcha Doing, Levitating, These Walls, No Scrubs (TLC), Maria, Physical, Electricity, Hallucinate, Illusion, Falling Forever, Happy for You, Love Again, Anything for Love, Be the One
Encore: New Rules, Dance the Night, Don’t Start Now, Houdini
