Lucy Dacus at the Visulite Theater in Charlotte

Lucy Dacus put on an excellent show at the Visulite Theater in Charlotte last night. I was already a fan of her album Historian from last year but seeing her perform live makes me a bigger fan. She is better in person than on record.

This was my first time at the Visulite Theater which was a nice venue. Free parking, good sound, and plenty of places to get a good viewpoint. There is a small area for standing in front of the stage and then a large area behind that with seating. I was able to get a totally unobstructed view by sitting back a bit. The stage has an usual set up with the drummer to the left instead of center, or maybe that’s just how Lucy Dacus and opener Mothers do it. The two bands shared a drum kit. Either way this gave everyone a better view of the drummer than you normally get.

Mothers were a good start to the night. They played a very technically proficient style of indie rock. I not a musician but I think I can tell when someone is good at playing their instruments and they seemed good at playing their instruments. Just don’t ask me to articulate how, I’m not that good. 🙂

Lucy was next. She came out by herself and politely asked the audience not to record her first song because it was new. As far as I could tell everyone actually honored this request. At the end of the set for her very last song she did the same thing. These two new songs sounded very promising. I wonder if they are finished and will just be her on the guitar alone or if her band will get a chance to play on them and what they will sound like if they do. The majority of her set was from Historian although the handful of older songs from her debut album did not disappoint. Her second song of the night, and first with the band, was Addictions, which is the one XMU played a lot last year. I don’t know if that counts as a hit but you know you’re in for a good show when the artist is confident enough to play their “hit” that early in the set.

I had wondered if her time recently in Boygenius with Julian Baker and Phoebe Bridgers would soften her sound any, and maybe it did if her new songs are just her alone but the Historian songs were nice and loud just like on the album. Once I heard Timefighter with it’s bit of heavy guitars I was even more excited for Night Shift which I knew would sound great and it did. I’ve now seen all three members of Boygenius play solo shows and I have to say Lucy Dacus was the best live even if I may still prefer Phoebe Bridgers’s album.

Lucy’s voice sounded great live, hitting every note, this would have been a great show to make a live album from. She seemed to be enjoying herself even when she got a bit emotional debuting a song about her mothers (adoptive and birth). That was another big plus to this show, the live debut of at least two new songs. She didn’t say if it was the debut of very first song she played but I’m guessing the Charlotte audience was one of the first if not the first to hear that one too.

The crowd sang along to the familiar songs and Lucy said that was the biggest compliment you can give a musician, so when the next song was Night Shift everyone sang and afterwards she said she could her the crowd louder than herself. Then she warned everyone there wouldn’t be a fake encore and played her last new song alone to end the fantastic show.