I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: January 28, 2026] La Luz

I grabbed tickets to the Portugal. The Man show and was really excited that La Luz was opening for them.

I know La Luz from a live Levitation recording that I really dig.  I don’t know a lot more about the band aside from the basic bio.  They are from Seattle and are known for their “surf noir” style, with layered vocal harmonies.  The blurb says their “energetic live shows often include Soul Train-inspired dance contests and crowd surfing.”

As and opening band it’s unlikely that you’ll elicit that kind of response, but the crowd did really enjoy them.

I had an ADA seat so I wasn’t worried about trying to get too close to the stage.  And since I had a few minutes I checked out the booths that PTM had in the lobby. There were some great causes including their own book publishing label.  I saw some excellent bandanas for sale with the money going to good causes, so I bought two.  But the guy selling them to me was so slow!  It felt like he needed to tell me the origin of each one and where the money was going to and, I don’t know, the serial number.  And while he was doing this La Luz started.  So I missed the beginning and some of I Wanna Be Alone.  I could hear through the doors, but boy was I annoyed.

So La Luz has been around since 2012.  They were founded by Shana Cleveland who sings and plays guitar.  She is a great front woman, clearly having a great deal of fun.  She does play a kind of surf guitar, but that is mostly due to the vibrato.  Some songs are clearly not surfy at all, like Poppies.  But the guitar has that classic vibrato sound.

Anyhow, I got to my seat as that first song was ending and they moved right on to Call Me in the Day, a slower statelier song with lots of keys from Maryam Qudus.  For even though there is kind of a punky edge to the band, they are all about harmonies and cool sounds.  Plus, during the keyboard solo, Shana and bass Lee Johnson did a spinning dance routine.

Strange World had a retro feel (those keys) with drummer Audrey Johnson smacking the crap out of the drums.  The harmonies on this song were outstanding.  And Shana’s guitar solo was super cool.

Poppies slowed things down, propelled by the bass line of Lee Johnson (Johnson and Qudus both joined in 2024 and apparently added new sounds to the overall vibe of the band).

Floating Features was a complicated instrumental that I really liked–it wasn’t 4/4 and it jumped around in cool ways.  And then the song simply rocked.  Shana was particularly fun with her guitar solos.  Before this one she shouted Guitar solo! After the song she said that she had wanted to shout guitar solo before every solo and she forgot.

The song segued seamless into Cicada, a bouncy surfy song.  Then they showed off their diversity with the slower, romantic Always in Love.  Shana’s voice is really great and she shows of her range with this quieter more falsetto’d song.  And yes, she did shout guitar solo for this song.

I loved the sci-fi opening of I’ll Go with You which turned into a delicate song which featured a yeah yeah yeah yeah refrain.

They played songs from four of their albums.  I wouldn’t say that the albums sound different, but you could kind of feel a vibe from the same album.  Interestingly, they didn’t play anything from their previous self titled album La Luz.

California Finally has very Cali vibes with the satisfying chorus I do what I wanna do.  They ended with Sure as Spring, a more rocking song with a wild keyboard solo (Shana did yell Keyboard solo after saying there was no guitar solo).

They were a lot of fun and totally rocked.

Between their set and Portugal’s I went out to the lobby (the main benefit of the ADA seat is not losing your place up front) and grabbed one of their cool T-shirts (which my daughter immediately said she wanted to wear. I also grabbed her one of these great bumper stickers:

A woman’s place is melting your face.

Indeed it is.

La Luz are great and I definitely want to see them headlining where they can rally show off their dance skills.

1. I Wanna Be Alone (With You) ℜ
2. Call Me in the Day ∇
3. Strange World ℵ
4. Poppies ℵ
5. Floating Features ≅
6. Cicada ≅ 
7. Always in Love ℵ
8. I’ll Go With You ℵ
9. California Finally ≅
10. Sure as Spring ∇

ℵ News of the Universe (2024)
≅ Floating Features (2018)
∇ It’s Alive (2013)
ℜ Weirdo Shrine (2015)