Laufey Enraptures the Hollywood Bowl in Show With the LA Phil: Review

If a team of aesthetically attuned scientists could reverse-engineer the perfect Hollywood Bowl, they might have come up with the 25-year-old Icelandic-Chinese-American sensation known as the unique Laufey. No one would have thought to come up with such an impossible list, but she ticks it off anyway: a singer who would have been right at home on the same stage in the 1950s but who appeals to a younger demographic in the 2020s. A multi-instrumentalist with skills on electric guitar, piano and cello. A romantic with a sense of wonder that seems just right for a summer night. And perhaps most important: she plays well with Thomas Wilkins and the woodwinds.

Some of them are palace-born; in that vein, Lovi is a stadium-born. Her triumphant appearance at the venue Wednesday night, backed by the L.A. Phil and led by Wilkins, seemed preordained perhaps from the point she released her first EP just three years ago. It seemed especially clear after Lovi did what felt like a test run in the summer of 2023, playing with the Philharmonic Orchestra across the valley at the much smaller Ford Amphitheatre. With a passionate following that had already surpassed the term “cult,” she could have filled the stadium by the time she was at the Ford 11 months ago. In fact, the fact that this year’s headline appearance at the venue was for one night only was a bit of an understatement, too. Tickets sold out instantly—and even the more lucrative resale tickets were selling for such a premium—it seemed clear that Lovi could have done a three-night gig.

Yet she remains under the radar of at least some in the music industry, let alone the general public, even with her Grammy win this year, sold-out concerts from the Hollywood Hills to Radio City Music Hall, and an IYKYK level of hysteria among her youngest and truest believers. That’s probably about as much, for an artist whose retro-style sound won’t be for everyone. Would Brigadoon seem special if the entire world attended her sporadic events?

Although Laufey typically tours with a small band, and most recently with a string quartet, this wasn’t her first time playing with an orchestra until this month. The previous Friday, she performed with the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra at Lollapalooza, marking the first time a symphony performance had been performed at that festival. But Laufey’s West Coast fans certainly got the best of both worlds, at least in terms of volume. While she only managed to get through 15 numbers in Chicago, she managed to make a full “evening” in Los Angeles—replicating the full orchestral set of 15 songs from Lollapalooza for the second half of the show, but preceding it before intermission with an additional 11-song warm-up set with her regular group.

It was mostly a case of saving the best for last, or at least for the second act, but the first set offered a nice glimpse into some of Laufey’s more youthful songs, including some she may have already outgrown in the very short space between her early and mid-20s. “Slow Down,” she explained, is a song she rarely plays anymore, but it was particularly fitting for a show in what is now her hometown of Los Angeles—it was written when she moved into her first post-parenthood, post-Berkeley apartment here and was worried that life might be moving too fast. (She clearly did.) Song titles like “All I Know About Love” and “Dear Soulmate” reflect a kind of self-conscious naivety, or aspirational approach to romance, that Laufey in 2024 may have already outgrown, but it’s not too far in the rearview mirror to revive. What's most charming about this first part is the introduction of her twin sister, Junia, who turns out to be not only a graphic designer/double-crosser but also a fierce violinist in her own right – in “Best Friend,” a sweet testament to their bond that brought some fun out of both of their parts.

That would have been a reasonable title in itself, but most of the real practical magic was reserved for the Phil-enhanced set, where Lovi swapped her black skirt and white GoGo boots for a more extravagant, pretty pink outfit that was recognizable from the back rows of the pool (and perhaps the space). The set opened with her most nostalgic and “cute” number—“Dreamer,” the title track from her 2023 album “Bewitched”—before Lovi settled mostly into the kind of quiet, melancholic material that was her best stock. She has plenty of torch songs in her arsenal, and there’s nothing like the LA Phil at its most reserved to throw enough wicks on their mutual disharmony to create a beautiful conflagration.

Lovi can also sing love songs, and she has enough experience in that area now to talk about them. In that category, “Valentine” came in, surprising the audience at the match by holding up red and white lit-up phones, much to the singer’s delight. But her songs about feeling left out of love are so good that you can hope these aren’t just a phase for her. One of the great things about Lovi is that some of her sad songs feel timeless and ageless, while others—perhaps the majority—contain phrases or lyrical references that connect her to the sensibilities of a woman in her 20s in the present day. It’s a bit like Frank’s longing for Ava, if you can imagine Frank and Ava as college students worrying about the impossibility of love in between completing their dissertations.

Lovey has a Taylor Swift side, or at least a Kelly Smith-meets-Swift side. The biggest offbeat song so far in her still-slim catalog is “Goddess,” the sub-song of the recent “Bewitched: Goddess Edition” deluxe package. Performed with Lovey on piano, it has the singer weeping rather candidly—to the point of using the not-so-nostalgic F-word—about her experience of feeling exploited, in a romantic relationship, as a celebrity, and it was the only number of the night in which she deliberately injected a tangle of her flawless alto voice, for visceral effect. The song offered a possible glimpse into Lovey’s future, should she choose to pursue a more raw, emotional sensibility that some younger music fans are all too familiar with.

But from that haunting number, Laufey moved straight into the most fun song of the night, a short, hilarious version of the Jimmy Van Heusen classic “It Could Happen to You” that had her putting down the instruments to dance across the stage. Assuming the surprise encounter was intentional, it was Laufey’s way of proving her breadth in a nutshell… and perhaps also her way of reassuring her fan base that getting a little dark with her confessional material wouldn’t displace her love for things like the Great American Songbook, whether they be covers or her own originals.

Among the highlights of Lovi’s concert was any of the many numbers that ended with her moving from center stage to a waiting seat behind the cello for a solo. When she sat at the piano, it meant the audience had a good chance of getting something that leaned more toward her classically trained side, like “Promise” and “California and Me.” (It’s nice to have material that evokes baroque but also recalls Melrose Avenue.) When she plays her electric guitar, it often means everyone is in for something with a slight hint of bossa nova—or a very explicit stab at one, as in the closing “From the Start.”

Demographics are a fun thing to discuss at Laufey’s concert… and her Hollywood Bowl show was a little different from her other L.A. appearances at many of her concerts, inspiring Swiftie-level screams between songs, and some loud singing during the numbers. And for someone so steeped in ’40s and ’50s classics, her audience was, somewhat surprisingly, almost entirely made up of under-30s and especially under-25s. In Southern California, at least, you could count on a crowd that wasn’t just young, but at least half-Asian, many of whom were almost dressed up as Laufey, mimicking her signature chic. A big element of that was evident at the Bowl; at one point, as you looked around as the crowd gathered, it seemed like every fourth young woman or so had a distinctive bow in her hair, not something you’d see at any old L.A. concert.

But at Paul’s, there was something unusual and different in evidence: seniors. (And by that, we mean over-30s, and yes, even a good percentage of over-50s.) It’s always been our contention, going back to our review of Ford’s show last summer, that the older demographic would love Lovie, and perhaps even love her records—but they might never get a chance to see her shows, if more Gen Z fans were to rush out and buy up all the tickets as soon as they went on sale. Here at Hollywood’s most prestigious venue, there was a crowd of seniors who were first to claim the booth seats—and they seemed to have developed enough affection for Lovie, too, that they weren’t about to give them up, even if there were younger fans eagerly willing to spend several times their face value to claim them on StubHub.

So the Wednesday crowd had a slightly odd effect of being quieter in the front half than the back half. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing: a lot of Laufey's material was He does It was funny to hear more roaring at other moments mostly coming from the back. And when it got to the point in “From the Beginning” where Luffy's audience inevitably screamed along with her exclamation of “blah-blah-blah”, it was definitely louder up the hill.

But it's great that AARP audiences have the opportunity to enjoy Laufey's music, too, especially those with an ear trained in the kind of pre-rock classics that this once-in-a-generation talent taps into in her own music. Sorry, Gen Z — you can't keep hoarding these old sounds to yourself forever.

Laufey's setlist at the Hollywood Bowl, August 7, 2024:

First half (band only):
Above the Chinese restaurant
Street by street
Second best
Haunted
All I know about love
slow down
Dear soulmate
what will love do to you
best friend
hazy
like movies
A letter to myself when I was thirteen

2nd half (with LA Phil):
dreamer
while you were sleeping
lagging behind
Let me break your heart again
breakable
Valentine's Day
The beautiful stranger
I wish you love
It is
California and me
Goddess
It may happen to you
fascinated
boring
Love is sick
From the beginning