[ATTENDED: April 16, 2025] Lucy Dacus
I have seen Lucy Dacus quite a few (six) times and she always puts on a mesmerizing show. The first time I saw her was at Johnny Brenda’s (capacity 250), the most recent was at Union Transfer (capacity 1200). And now here she was starting off her first tour after boygenius in her former home town of Philadelphia by playing The Met (capacity 3800).
And, wow, did she step it up for this bigger venue. She had a gigantic backdrop designed to look like a museum wall. There were picture frames and columns and it looked amazing. And even this was presented theatrically as for the openers and for Lucy’s first song, the whole extravaganza was covered in a dropcloth. The band even walked through the dropcloth opening at the center of the backdrop. When it dramatically dropped away, the crowd went nuts.
And as she sang, one (or more) of the frames would display a picture that had something to do with the song she was playing.
Because this was the Forever is a Feeling tour, she played mostly songs from that new album (she played the whole album, but not in order). The album opens with Calliope Prelude and so did the show. It’s a short instrumental which is primarily strings and it worked very nicely as “walk on” music.
And then she launched right into Hot & Heavy, a song that opens quietly but builds really nicely to get the whole band involved. I was surprised that she hadn’t opened with a song from the new album, but she followed that up with five songs in a row from it. The band includes Sarah Goldstone (keys vocals), Dominic Angelella (bass), Alan Good Parker Guitars), Phoenix Rousiamanis (violin), and Ricardo Lagomasino (drums).
First was Ankles, the big single from the album–I’m always surprised when bands play their new single so early, but it worked to keep the energy up. This also happened to be the first Lucy album I hadn’t listened to much before the show. So I didn’t know these new songs all that well. But Lucy is engrossing as a performer. And it’s fun to hear a sing for the first time in a live setting. Like hearing the words to Modigliani–while she projected a Modigliani painting on the screen. (more…)
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