Lucius
Thalia Hall // Chicago, IL // March 13, 2018
The fearless folk foursome sent Nudes to a sold-out Chicago crowd.
Lucius are the most symmetrically satisfying band in the world. Drummer Dan Molad and guitarist Peter Lalish stood on either side of the stage in all black, while the harmonizing queens Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig shared an old-fashioned microphone center stage. Above them, a neon sign with “Lucius” in cursive changed from neon pink to neon green between songs while fog rolled in from stage right and stage left. There’s no doubt the band is beautiful. However, if you closed your eyes at a Lucius concert and just listened to the sounds floating through the concert hall, it wouldn’t matter if the band members were wearing gray sweatpants. Everything comes down to that heavenly folk music.
Nudes, the band’s fourth studio album (and a compilation album), was released earlier this month with the help of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters. Wolfe and Laessig sang backup on Waters’ most recent tour, which gave them a huge audience to sing to. While many of Lucius’ songs are more poppy and fast-paced, they played exclusively acoustic versions, giving new life to their music. These stripped-down songs really highlighted Wolfe and Laessig’s voices and reminded everyone where the lifeblood of the band really comes from. it’s rare that a band can completely entrance an audience, but when you looked into the crowd at Thalia Hall, not a single person was distracted or on their phone.
