Singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus, along with openers jasmine.4.t and Katie Gavin, performed at MGM Music Hall April 20 and 21, marking the fourth stop on Dacus’ “Forever is a Feeling” tour.
Dacus lived up to expectations, beautifully singing recent hits like “Ankles” and “Best Guess” alongside fan favorites like “Night Shift” and “Please Stay.”
Dacus’ vocals were almost unreal considering how much she sounded like the recorded versions of her songs. From the first words of the opening song, “Hot & Heavy,” Dacus’ raw talent was obvious, and fans immediately reacted to it.
The backdrop included ornate frames that made perfect sense with the imagery of the album. The art inside each frame, which changed to match the songs’ lyrics and cover art, was unique yet classic in its reminiscence of different art periods.
From renaissance to modern, the show spanned history with its backdrop alone, encapsulating the message “forever is a feeling” through visuals.
While the backdrop was astounding, the lighting was largely minimal. It certainly had its moments — flashing orange during “Talk” and the intense blue during “True Blue” — but was overall unremarkable.
I can see how this may have been an attempt to spotlight the frame backdrop or Dacus’ music more — which I’m not mad at — but I still wish they had utilized this element more.
Going into the concert, I had high hopes.
Like many queer women my age, I was an avid Phoebe Bridgers and boygenius fan in 2023, and I have the Spotify Wrapped screenshots to prove it. boygenius, consisting of Dacus, Bridgers and Julien Baker, released “the record” in March of that year.
When I felt I had sufficiently listened to that album, I made the natural jump to exploring Baker and Dacus’ individual music.
As a young queer person, their music struck a chord, and I immediately fell in love with it.
Based on previous tour dates’ setlists, I could all but expect to hear “Night Shift,” and it wasn’t unsurprising to get “Triple Dog Dare” and “I Don’t Wanna be Funny Anymore.”
I knew all of these songs would emotionally devastate me in their own rights. What I didn’t expect to hear was “Please Stay” in all its tragically beautiful glory, which Dacus had not yet played on tour.
Suffice it to say, I cried.
Dacus’ discography features a lot of songs that I considered sad, but this is especially true with her older music.
As she played these emotionally intense songs, she maintained a level of solemnity for their darker themes while also joking with the audience about how they can be intimidating to perform.
I especially loved these comments in between songs, as it was easy to get lost in the emotion of her voice during the performances. Her conversational comments helped to bring the crowd back to the present, ready for the next song.
Because the peak of my listening had been prior to the release of the tour’s namesake album “Forever is a Feeling,” I expected to enjoy the older songs significantly more.
While the older songs will always hold a special place in my heart, I found myself enjoying newer songs like “Modigliani,” “Limerence” and “Big Deal” almost as much as Dacus’ classics.
These three played back to back and allowed Dacus to show off her angelic voice that fans know so well. While I had underappreciated these songs from her new album, hearing them live made me excited to revisit the recorded versions and approach them from a new angle.
In addition to the almost heavenly feel encompassed by the renaissance art backdrop and angelic notes, the concert had a somewhat casual feel, which I really appreciated.
In between songs, Dacus sipped from a mug of tea sat near the front of the stage and commented on audience reactions she found endearing.
Still, Dacus balanced her more somber performances with her contented ones wonderfully, and the resulting effect was a devastatingly beautiful sense of vulnerability.
Even beyond Dacus, openers jasmine.4.t and Katie Gavin created an intimate and casual vibe through their crowd interaction.
Gavin’s set was unique, even having a “hoedown throwdown” vibe at times, as she herself said about “The Baton.”
Considering I would call myself a MUNA fan, it took me a disappointingly long time to realize Gavin is one of the three members that make up the band.
Regardless, I enjoyed her set, especially “Aftertaste” and “Sweet Abby Girl,” even though I didn’t know it nearly as well as the other crowd members.
I also found jasmine.4.t to be particularly exciting, especially songs “Elephant” and “Woman” which created a palpable emotion in the air.
In between songs, the Manchester-native spoke about the United Kingdom’s recent supreme court decision to exclude trans women from the legal definition of women, as her trans identity is a central part of her music.
While there were times that I wished her set had a bit more going on in terms of instrumentation and effects, in light of the recent rise in political attacks on trans people, jasmine.4.t’s performance was nothing short of revolutionary.
Together, Jasmine, Gavin and Dacus created a space where queer identities were not only present, but embraced in all their forms.
Whether joy or sadness, pleasure or pain, there was space to feel it at the April 20 show for the “Forever is a Feeling” tour.
