I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: April 13, 2018] Lucy Dacus

I first heard Lucy Dacus’ “I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore” a few years ago.  I liked it and thought it was really catchy and more than a little subversive.

Then a saw a live performance (which I can’t find now) and that simple, quiet quality of her music was blown away by moments of complete intensity.

I knew I wanted to see her and was excited to see that she’d be playing Johnny Brenda’s.  The show sold out pretty quickly.  So much so that they added an earlier show to the night.  At first I laughed wondering who would go to a show that started a 6:30, knowing that they had to be offstage by whatever time the next show started.

Then I thought to myself I could be home by 10PM!  So I bought a ticket for the early show and headed into Philly during rush hour traffic.

It was kind of weird having a show start at 6:30, but the room was dark and it was easy to forget that it was early once the first band started.  And then Lucy came out on stage with her guitar and the rest of her band.

Her new album Historian is a (mostly) quiet album that is really good.  The open track, Night Shift” is an amazingly powerful song about unhappy relationships which starts slow and grows bigger and bigger and catchier and catchier as it goes.

Lucy played all of Historian in order.  Except that she saved “Night Shift” for the end.  I have learned that in the later show she did an encore of the final song “Historians.”  We didn’t get an encore because they were pressed for time (Bob Boilen says if given the choice, always go to the later show, which I agree with, but I’m still glad I was home by 10).

It was great to hear her soft-but-not-delicate voice as she started off “Addictions” (I just love that wry chorus).  I had never watched a show from the Johnny Brenda’s balcony before.  The view was top-notch, although Lucy didn’t look up very much.

The band sounded great throughout the show–I think the balcony is a great location for sound.  I love the lyrics of “The Shell,” and of  “Nonbeliever” which starts quietly with Lucy strumming and then adds some cool effects from guitarist Jacob Blizzard.

Not every song has the same set up of quiet intro and build up, but “Yours & Mine” shows off a cool introductory riff before the catchy ending refrain.   The song also featured a cool solo from Blizzard.

Sadie Powers was on bass.  She didn’t do anything fancy, but she was an essential component holding down the low end, especially in “Timefighter.”  And Ricardo Lagomasino on drums was similarly not too fancy although there were some cool fills on the more rocking “Next of Kin.”

One of the best songs live is “Pillar of Truth.”   Dacus is pretty poised throughout the set, but the end of this song allows her a moment to really let loose.  She told us it is about her grandmother, and it’s a really pretty, slow, building song.  It’s one of my favorites on the record.

After the third or fourth song, her guitar strap fell off mid-song.  She held on to the guitar and kept singing without missing a note, despite the look of alarm.  She even tried to play a little with her guitar in that awkward position, but she had to give up for a bit.

There’s one more song on the album, “Historians,” but Dacus played some old stuff instead, four songs from her first album.

The first one, “Map on a Wall” is an intensely personal song which in my mind takes guts to sing in front of anyone–it’s hard to imagine it when she was an opening act:

Oh please, don’t make fun of me,
of my crooked smile and my crowded teeth,
of my pigeon feet, of my knobby knees.
Well, I got more problems than not.

But I feel fine and I made up my mind
to live happily, feeling beautiful beneath the trees
above a ground that’s solid at the core.
Oh please, don’t make fun of me.
Oh you know I get frightened so easily

Indeed, no one made fun of her.  In fact we were rapt as she sang this by herself with her guitar.

She did a medley of “Dream State…” and “…Familiar Place.”

By the time she had come to this part of the show, I had forgotten about “I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore” and I was really psyched to hear it.

And then she ended with a stellar version of “Night Shift” from the description of her awkward first kiss to the cathartic ending, it was simply fantastic.

The show ended then.  We all thought she might come back for an encore, but the scheduling was pretty tight.  I think a number of people were staying for the late show.  I could have done so as well, but it was time to get home.

Setlist

1. Addictions
2. The Shell
3. Nonbeliever
4. Yours & Mine
5. Body to Flame
6. Timefighter
7. Next of Kin
8. Pillar of Truth
9. Map on a Wall*
10. Dream State…*
11. …Familiar Place*
12. I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore*
13. Night Shift

* from No Burden