Hilary Duff has spent years wincing at “The Math.” The Metamorphosis track, sung from a frustrated relationship using arithmetic signs and a *69 reference, is something the 38-year-old told Rolling Stone she now finds cringe. “I literally die inside every time,” she said. “Those lyrics? I’m ashamed.” So of course, on August 6 at Madison Square Garden, she revived it — for the first time since 2006.
“I hope you remember the words to this song,” she told the crowd. “I hope I remember the words.” She did, turning a private embarrassment into a shared act of catharsis on a tour that has unearthed fan favorites con entusiasmo. The Lucky Me Tour, supporting her first new album in over a decade, Luck... or Something, leans heavily into the catalog Duff hadn’t touched live in years, including the deep cut “Anywhere But Here.”
Where other legacy returns might tiptoe around their teen-pop past, Duff’s run has become a full-throttle costume party. Fans arrive in Lizzie McGuire’s pink tank and blue capris, Sam’s pancake-batter apron from A Cinderella Story, or Cadet Kelly’s camo. The unofficial dress code is early-2000s overload: butterfly clips, sequined skirts, space buns by the hundreds. It’s less a concert uniform than a rewinding of a cultural VHS tape.
Duff herself frames the excavation as a way of letting a younger self “out every once in a while.” What could have been a rote nostalgia exercise feels sharper because the performer is willing to be surprised by her own material — and willing to play the song she once hoped everyone would forget.
