Lucius–An Intimate, Acoustic Performance
Friday, March 16, 2018
State Theatre, Portland, Maine
This was a lovely night. Lucius is such a pleasure to see live. Holly and Jess’ costumes and stage presence are always beautiful, and their voices are truly perfect. They were quite conversational, too, which I love in a concert experience. My friend Marian is a Lucius superfan and travels all over the country to see them. She’s even traveling to Amsterdam in September for a Lucius show. She ran into Jess at Speckled Ax in Portland the morning of the show and they talked for a few minutes, which totally made her day! Marian and I both accidentally had way too many tickets to this show (because we are always trying to introduce new people to Lucius), but we were able to find people to take them and finagle seats for ourselves in the first and second rows for this intimate, seated show at the State Theatre.
I’m still shocked that Lucius isn’t a household name. For those who know music, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, who have been singing together for almost 15 years since they met at Berklee College of Music, have contributed vocals for Roger Waters, Jeff Tweedy, Mavis Staples, John Prine, Lukas Nelson, and more. To say they’re the sweethearts of the Newport Folk Festival is an understatement. They were featured guests in many Newport artists’ sets over the last handful of years. Their ability to blend flawlessly and not outshine others while also being true rock stars is commendable. Marian and I were both excited to hear the announcement a few days after this show that Lucius will be back at Newport again this summer, which we’ll both attend.
I saw Lucius open for Milo Greene at Brighton Music Hall back in 2012. I was totally smitten right away, and been lucky have seen them a handful of times since then. Lucius don’t know how to put on a bad show, which is a genuine compliment. Perhaps the most notable thing from this sold out show at the State Theatre was that the audience was silent the entire night. The stage presence it takes to captivate such a big crowd like that seems unimaginable, unless you’ve seen Lucius in person. Thank you, fellow audience members, for making this such a beautiful night. I’ve witnessed more and more disrespect from audiences at shows in the last couple of years, so this night gave me hope and elevated this concert experience to another level. 
Lucius sang a nice blend of songs from all of their albums–Wildewoman (2013), Good Grief (2016), and their new release, Nudes. They opened with“Go Home” and “Don’t Just Sit There”back-to-back, which brought me right back to when I discovered them in 2012. I wore out their 4 song EP disc from overuse after that first show at Brighton Music Hall. Jess and Holly also sang a few reimagined covers that made me like songs like Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You in the End” even more. I was over the moon to hear “Two of Us on the Run” and “How Loud Your Heart Gets” back-to-back towards the end of their set. They’re both stunning songs.
During the night, Jess said they were honored to be back in Maine at a sold out headlining show. Jess told us that they love Bob and Gail Ludwig fromGateway Mastering in Portland who are some of their most favorite people. Lucius opened for Tegan and Sara back in 2013 at the State, and Jess added that to “see you all here singing the words to our songs, supporting us at our own show, and seeing kids wearing golden capes is a dream come true.” They closed their set with “Woman” from Nudes and left the stage to thunderous applause.
Lucius came back to the stage for a three song encore, starting with “Dusty Trails,” which they invited show opener Ethan Gruska on stage to sing with them. They covered “Strangers” by the Kinks, and Jess introduced their final song of the night with heartfelt comments about the power of music to send positivity into the world. She said:
“This band and us working together has been the power of collaboration. The power of creating something that’s greater than ourselves as individuals that’s positive. We do that with our writing. We have two heads and two hearts lending perspective within one song and we have two voices making one voice and we have our whole band putting on a show together for you guys and at the end of the day, we wouldn’t be here without you, so thank you very much. We feel the power and love that you give to us and it fuels us to be able to do what we do and in having spent so much time together the thing that we’ve learned is that our greatest dream of all is that you each take something from this experience that we are all sharing tonight that you need–whether it’s joy or bittersweetness or sorrow or pain or love or humor–and you take it out into your everyday lives and pay it forward. Share it with a neighbor in the form of love because it may sound repetitive to say this, but it is all we need right now. No matter where you go, do something positive with this.”
They closed the night with a cover of “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” which reinforced their hopes for positivity and community and was a perfect end for a beautiful night. What a night! If you don’t know Lucius, seize this moment to discover them. You’ll be so glad you did.
xo,
bree
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