I Just Read About That…

[DID NOT ATTEND: January 29, 2024] Lucius

I’ve had a ton of opportunities to see Lucius in the last two years.  My count is 5 (plus two at festivals I wasn’t going to).  For one reason or another (sometimes inertia) I just didn’t go.

Then they announced this ten year anniversary of their debut album and I thought that that would be really fun to see.  I really liked about half of the album a lot.  The rest was good.  And I figured in a live setting all of the songs would be great.

The strange thing is I had no idea that Lucius has released only three albums (and various other remixes and stuff).  So when they played in NJ last year, had I gone, I would have seen half of this album anyway!  In fact, had I gone to that show, I would have heard them play one of their newer songs that I love, “Next to Normal.”  Serves me right.

But there was something neat about going to this little mini-tour and being one of the select cities that got to see it.

It took them a while t o come out.  In fact, they turned the lights out at 8:45 and we sat in the dark until like 9:10, which is just weird.  But whatever.  The guys came out first and then Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig came out in matching outfits–berets and bold colored jackets00primary colors splitting the coats in half with brighter colors on the pockets.  They looked great.

There was a (tall) family in front of me and they were pretty good when they started singing “Wildewoman.”  There was a woman behind me who was singing very loudly.  She had a good voice, but honestly we are here to hear these two women with incredible voices.   Fortunately she was mostly in tune and easy to ignore.

I acknowledge that I don’t know the album exactly.  I didn’t realize that the first half of the album had all of the songs I love, so it was incredible to hear song after song that sounded amazing.  Their voices are terrific on the record but wow, they are amazing live.  And the band was great too.  A simple set up of drummer guitar and bassist, but that guitar was terrific.  Rocking and loud, with kicking guitar solos.  The album rocks for sure, but man did it rock harder live.

Then they stopped the flow of the album and walked to the side of the stage. (My side, hooray).  Jeff Taylor who had been playing percussion from time to time came over and played acoustic guitar on a “new” song.  It’s from the Wildewoman sessions but didn’t make the album.  They have released it as a single, but I didn’t listen to it before the show.

Then they returned to the record for a few more songs (Don’t Just Sit There” was incredible) and then played another new one.   “Ice Cream” hearkens to the debut album cover which has a woman licking an ice cream cone.

Then they finished up the album with a few big clap-alongs like “How Loud Your Heart Gets,” and “Genevieve.”

They left the stage a for a short time and then came back out with new outfits.  This time they were black and white and Jess was carrying a mailbox.  I hadn’t seen this mailbox, but I assume fans knew it was there because it was full of fan letters and pictures. Jess and Holly sat on the floor and read a few letters that were all very touching.  This makes me think that ALL bands should have a mailbox for their fans to put letters into.

After they finished the letters, they came back over to my side of the stage with Jeff Taylor again and they proceeded to sing some covers.  They sang a Paul Anka song that sounded vaguely familiar and then they sang a gorgeous version of My Morning Jacket’s “Wonderful.”  It’s a beautiful song when Jim James sings it but when these two voices wrap around the song it is heavenly.

They played one more song, the only one from a different album “Dusty Trails.”   I didn’t know it but I liked it immediately.

They returned to their full band setup for “Stranger Danger” and then announced that they’d be coming out into the audience.

The bummer for me is that over the course of the last few songs, I had been slowly moving to the right to get around the tall families near me.  SO when the band moved int the center of the crowd I had effectively moved  about fifteen feet away from the center where I started.  I couldn’t see the at all, but they sounded amazing as they sang “Two of Us on the Run” (from Wildewoman, the one song they hadn’t played yet!).  And  they ended the set with what Setlist is calling a Beatles song. “Goodbye” was written by Lennon and McCartney, but it was never a Beatles song.  They wrote it for Mary Hopkin (and Paul has a demo on the Abbey Road remaster).   I mean, it sounds just like a Beatles song and their voices sounded terrific singing it.

I’m bummed with myself for not seeing them on the previous tour, but this was a lot of fun and good vibe all night.

I even got to see  a woman I used to work with, so that was fun.

SETLIST

1. Wildewoman ∇
2. Turn It Around ∇
3. Go Home ∇
4. Hey, Doreen ∇
5. Tempest ∇
6. Nothing Ordinary ∇
7. Housewarming @
8. Until We Get There ∇
9. Don’t Just Sit There ∇
10. Ice Cream @
11. Monsters ∇
12. How Loud Your Heart Gets ∇
13. Genevieve ∇
    encore
14. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore (Paul Anka cover)
15. Wonderful (My Morning Jacket cover)
16. Dusty Trails ♣  (with Jeff Taylor)
17. Stranger Danger @
18. Two of Us on the Run ∇ (Acoustic, in the crowd)
19. Goodbye (The Beatles/Mary Hopkin cover) (Acoustic, in the crowd)

@ single 2023 [Housewarming recorded at time of Wildewoman, but unreleased]
♣ Good Grief (2016)
∇ Wildewoman (2013)