I’ve come to get the hang of timing for when to arrive for shows as a reviewer-slash-avid concert goer. I drove past the familiar black block letters that announced “LAUFEY,” and casually rolled into the parking lot. Walking to the venue, I was soon face-to-face with the longest line I’d ever seen there — by far. I thought to myself, this can’t be the line to The Observatory; it reached an area of the venue I hadn’t ever even seen humans reside before. It was. Then, once inside, I could barely enter the main room because the merch line had snaked all the way to the entrance of the venue, which, again, had previously never been an issue.
But the most awe-inspiring moment of the night was when the show started. I was familiar with the work of the half Icelandic, half Chinese singer from some very sporadic sources: first, I’d seen a video of hers on TikTok, just her and an electric guitar. At the time she had a few thousand followers, and I remember being blown away in the first few seconds by her writing, voice, and playing ability, sending it to a few friends, then going about my day. Fast forward years later, I saw she had performed with the Philharmonic. I checked out some of those songs and loved it. She’d found her lane, and the collaboration was so fitting. Because of this mellow introduction to her singing with a highly esteemed orchestra, I had expected an extremely laid back show akin to the videos of her singing with them, and of course, some stellar, tightly rehearsed live instrumentation.
I was only right on the latter; as I mentioned, the most awe-inspiring moment was when Laufey walked out onstage, and the ensuing cheers. It felt like hysteria, the likes of which were most similar to the crowd at The Eras Tour this year. I later found out, on a podcast I listened to after the show, that Laufey’s main sources of music growing up were jazz, classical, and Taylor Swift, for her relatable lyrics. “I wanted to hear that within the music I made…old men wrote [jazz] for musicals…it loses this sense of relatability.” It’s an inviting concoction, and makes sense. But, at that moment, I was just flabbergasted at how much traction Laufey had gained on TikTok since I hadn’t kept up with her. She took full advantage of the platform in the best way, and it was inspiring to see.