Lucy Dacus, indie rocker and member of three-piece supergroup boygenius, kicked off the tour for her new album in Philadelphia on April 16. My girlfriend, Brena, and I were lucky enough to be in attendance for the opening show at The Met, an ornate and stunning venue. Brena and I have both been Dacus fans for years, and the last time we saw her solo was in 2022 when she was touring her third album Home Video and before Brena and I even knew each other. We saw her together as part of boygenius when the band toured in 2023, but a solo Dacus show is always special, and we had been waiting for this for a long time.

Her fourth album, Forever Is a Feeling, was released March 31, and we had bought the tickets to this show before we even heard it. With not much time to commit the lyrics to memory, I think we still did a good job listening on repeat to prepare. Lucy Dacus’ fame skyrocketed after the release of boygenius’s first LP, The Record, in 2023, so Brena and I were a bit apprehensive that the show would feel different than we were used to, from the much larger, seated venue to the influx of new fans.

It definitely did not feel the same as being front row at the 1,200-capacity Union Transfer when I saw Dacus for the Home Video Tour in 2021, as Brena and I were in the Loge section of the 3,500-capacity Met, but Dacus was as amazing as ever. It’s bittersweet when an artist you love suddenly gets so much bigger — I’m so glad she has so many fans and people have discovered how amazing she is, but I do miss the days when I could show up to the venue an hour before the doors opened and still be in the front row of the GA section. As a vertically challenged person, a good view is hard to come by!

Another disappointment we faced with this show is that our section stayed seated through the entire concert, and Brena and I were too scared to be admonished or make people angry, so we didn’t stand up to dance the way we wanted to. I had tried to get us GA tickets on the floor, but tickets went so fast the day of presale that the Loge section was the best I could get. While it was nice to have seats, we wished we didn’t have to be glued to them the whole time.

Despite some bitterness with our seats, we felt Lucy Dacus put on an excellent show, and the scale of this tour is larger than any of her previous shows. It’s evident that she has stepped up a level. In keeping with the museum motif of the album (the music video for “Ankles” is set in a museum, the album cover is framed in gold, and the song “Modigliani” was inspired by Dacus’ visit to the Barnes Foundation and named for the artist), the backdrop behind Dacus had five screens in various sizes framed in gold, like on a museum’s wall.

During “Modigliani” the screens displayed classical paintings, while during other songs they morphed into windows or displayed other visuals relating to the current song’s lyrics. It was a touch that really enhanced the overall experience, and clearly a lot of thought had been put into the stage and set design that wasn’t possible with the smaller shows Dacus was playing before.

For “Bullseye,” which features Hozier on the album, opening artist (and member of the band MUNA) Katie Gavin came out to sing Hozier’s part, which had the crowd going wild. Dacus is always incredible to hear live, as she has one of my favorite voices, and during the more subdued songs her vocals really shone and filled the whole venue effortlessly.

During the final song, 6-minute hit “Night Shift,” our section in the back finally stood up, and we got to really belt the lyrics along with Dacus, a therapeutic moment for the whole crowd.

Since Dacus lived in Philadelphia for five years, it always feels a bit like a hometown show seeing her here, and she acknowledged to the crowd that she views it the same way. Any time Lucy Dacus wants to come back home, we’ll surely welcome her with open arms.

— Hannah Gruen, advertising & events coordinator