LANY w/ Dagny
Showbox, Seattle, WA
11.07.17
LANY pretty much came out of nowhere. They’ve shown up randomly on a few Youtuber-made compilations since around 2015, and managed to headline a packed show at the Neptune a little over a year ago. With a positive response to that night and a squashed crowd at Bumbershoot this year, their show at The Showbox quickly sold out, leaving resale prices up in the triple digits—a story that proves how easy they are to love.
To kick things off, Dagny squeezed themselves onto the small part of the stage they had and absolutely crushed it. Their sound is the kind of music you hear remixed and pumped through shopping mall speakers, but when the band is as into it as Dagny was, you can’t help but dance along. While it’s rare for fans to get very into the openers set, everyone was jumping and dancing with the trio like they were the headliners.
There’s great opening tracks, and then there’s “Dumb Stuff.” The song has one of the longest intros in modern pop music, but perfectly sets the tone for LANY’s synth-heavy, dreamy set to come. Front-man Paul Klein ran on stage, screams erupted from the thick wall of teenagers, and the night was ready to get started.
Here’s the thing about LANY: the majority of their music, between a handful of EPs and one full length album, lacks any sort of profound lyrical depth. Phrases like “Ooo ooo ooo, that’s the way my heart feels” were some of the first I heard when their album came out a few months ago. But while they might not exactly have the whole clever and poetic words thing going for them, the tracks work well in other ways. Putting them on shuffle sounds like the soundtrack to every young-adult-novel-turned-movie with beachy vibes, lovey lyrics, and a dreamy undertone throughout.
All of my favorite tracks off their self-titled album are the slower ones. The upbeat ones lean more bubblegum-pop than their older stuff, but the slow ones take it back to that original LANY sound with soft bases, effortless vocals, and a sound that makes you feel like you’re floating. But with a pretty quick Bumbershoot set a few months ago, they packed the time slot mostly with the upbeat tracks, not wanting to see fans shed too many tears in the middle of their festival weekend. It was the right choice given the context of the set, but I was still sad to be missing some of my favorite slow songs.
This time around however, LANY’s set was packed with lots of those perfectly echoey songs that the PNW crowd had never seen before. “Hericane” and “Tampa” were two perfect examples of this. The intro would play and everyone in the crowd seemed to collectively gasp, ready to buckle down and get emotional as they sang along with arms around the people around them.
LANY might not be earth shattering, but between catchy melodies, easily memorable lyrics, and a lead singer with hair the perfect length to dramatically whip around, their set was absolutely perfect. It had such a strong personality to it, put the crowd in a weird trance that other concerts don’t, and left everyone walking out with big smiles and teary eyes.
Review and photos by Lulu Dawson
LANY
Dagny
