My most recent live music experience began back in June when I purchased tickets to see Lorde at the Stir Cove at Harrah’s Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

To be perfectly honest, I kept forgetting I even purchased the tickets. And when the weekend of the concert finally arrived, I was a little apprehensive about going because I’ve been so busy.

I considered selling the two tickets and spending my Saturday night with my math tutor instead. For once in my life, I’m glad that I didn’t choose to study.

The Stir Cove is an outdoor venue, with a grassy knoll that gently slopes down to the stage. Concertgoers can bring in chairs and blankets, but the area closest to the stage is for people who want to stand, scream and get all crazy. I am not one of those people.

My dad and I sat in our lawn chairs and I drank a huge margarita while the sun went down. You couldn’t have asked for a better night to have an outdoor concert. The weather was beautiful.

The band that opened for Lorde, a two-person group from Canada called Majical Cloudz, was just as awful as their band name. The lead singer wailed about death and unrequited love for the entirety of their thirty minute set. I can only assume that the band’s sole purpose was to make Lorde look and sound that much better. They succeeded in that respect.

Lorde herself didn’t take the stage until it was completely dark, an aspect that she used to her advantage. Her performance was as much a light show as it was a concert, with a lot of flashing strobes and backlighting.

She also spent most of the concert swimming in thick wisps of smoke that drifted across the stage on the mild night breeze.

Lorde opened with her dramatic gladiator tune “Glory and Gore,” which got everyone pumped up.

She sang a mixture of songs from her debut album “Pure Heroine” and several covers of songs by the likes of Kanye West and Bon Iver.

I thought that maybe the performance of her Grammy-winning song “Royals” would be when everyone went nuts, but there was no more cheering than for any of her other songs.

My only disappointment was that she did not perform two of my favorites: “The Love Club” and her cover of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. However, she made up for it with her cover of “Heavenly Father” by Bon Iver, which she made entirely her own.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

It also would have been cool if she would have performed her newest song, “Yellow Flicker Beat,” which she wrote for the third “Hunger Games” installment, but I was satisfied.

I was apprehensive about going to an outdoor concert, but the Stir Cove was great. Harrah’s needs better traffic control though, because being trapped in the parking lot for an entire hour after the concert was ridiculous.

But seeing Lorde in concert was a wonderful experience and I’d pay good money to go see her again.

However, I might show up late knowing who she has open for her.