Venue:
The Academy, Manchester
Date: 02/07/2025
Lucy Dacus may not be a household name, but she is having a bit of a moment. Hot on the heels of the success of boygenius her latest album is getting a lot of traction. Three years ago she was playing at Manchester’s 500 capacity Gorilla; now she’s effortlessly selling out the 2000 capacity Academy.
Her songs are understated, introspective and often low key melodically. But any fears that they wouldn’t work in a standing venue of this size are dismissed from the off, as she and her five piece band launch into ‘Hot and Heavy’ from her 2021 album ‘Home Video’, swiftly followed by the crowd pleasing ‘Ankles’ from her new album, ‘Forever is a Feeling’. She does almost the whole album, interspersed with songs from her earlier records including probably her best known song ‘Night Shift’. That, and the one boygenius song, ‘True Blue’, are greeted rapturously but so too are the new songs. The title track, and ‘Big Deal’ are standouts, but the song which arguably gets the warmest reception is ‘Best Guess’, which clearly is ‘Our Tune’ for many of the audience and I suspect will be much played at weddings in the years ahead. And rightly so; it’s a gorgeous song.
Dacus and her band are great at managing the dynamics of a gig – there’s a lovely intimate section in the middle of the show when they sit down in a semi circle and dial the sound down, but they are more than capable of turning it up to eleven as well without ever losing sight of the essence of whatever song they are playing.
@Bingo-Little posted a few days ago about the London gig and in particular the performance of her extraordinary song ‘Thumbs’. Sadly she didn’t do it in Manchester but it says something about the quality of her work that she can exclude it from a 21 song set in which there wasn’t a single track you didn’t want to hear.
So, a thoroughly enjoyable gig from an artist who has broken through, is absolutely at the top of her game, and seems to be having a ball.
The audience:
The audience was very different in its demographics from those at most concerts I go to, and even compared to the audiences of Dacus’s 30-something contemporaries like for example Laura Marling or Angel Olsen. As a pensionable age male I was a complete outlier – I may even have been the oldest person in the room. I’d say 75-80% were women, and most of them in their twenties to mid thirties. As evidenced by the response to Dacus’s tongue in cheek question – ‘is anyone here gay?’ many were. And they loved Dacus and they loved the songs. They knew them inside out, singing along, word perfect, to the upbeat numbers and listening in rapt silence to the quieter ones. This really meant something to them; these songs speak to them and for them.
It made me think..
So all that stuff about music peaked in 1971, or 81, or whenever, and all that stuff about pop music dying out because young people aren’t interested in it any more – well it’s all bollocks, isn’t it? I guarantee that there were people in that audience for whom Lucy Dacus means as much to them as Bob or Van or Bruce or Joni or whoever did to us in our twenties, and still do. And I am sure that some of them will still be treasuring those songs in thirty or forty years time and if Dacus is still putting out records or touring they’ll be there for her.
I love that, and I love the absolute joy there was in the room at this gig.
Here she is at Glastonbury
What a brilliant review – you’ve captured it well, particularly the sense of intimacy.
I’ve found it to be fairly life affirming being the old guy at the gig. Like you say, it’s actually quite nice to see that every new generation picks a bunch of songs against which they’ll measure their loves, their struggles, their wins and their losses. And it’s nice to stand in a room full of people as their songs – the songs that have helped make some sense of their lives – are played. I’ve done it with my parents and now I get to do it with my kids. Music doesn’t get any better or worse, it stays magical.
Spot on Bingo and a wonderful review BB. I had a similar feeling a couple of years ago at an Orla Gartland gig in Galway. I was almost certainly the oldest person in the room, surrounded by mostly young people. Music is in good hands.
I like Lucy Dacus and her partners in Boygenius. Still getting used to the new album, but Home Video is really good.
Thanks both – exactly as you express it was really great to see a room full of people for whom the music they were hearing meant so much. ‘Music doesn’t get better or worse, it stays magical’ indeed – beautifully put.