Lights at Cafe Du Nord, 8/5/2010 in San Francisco, CA
Synthpop artist LIGHTS, one of the few true MySpace success stories, is also one of the biggest stars in her native Canada, garnering sales, acclaim, and the Juno recognition to back up the plaudits. Combining a deceptively simple, post-emo-phase-nerd lyrical perspective with truly inspired production and a startlingly sophisticated sense of songcraft, the raven-haired, often-keytar-wielding artist would seem to be a dream for the teen music market in the U.S. Yet, even with a headlining spot on last year’s Vans Warped Tour, an almost unbelievably synergetic opening slot for Owl City, and even a guest appearance on MTV’s The City, she still seems to be flying somewhat under the mainstream radar in the U.S., a status which seems to suit the artist and her World of Warcraft-playing fans just fine.
Her gig at San Francisco’s intimate Café Du Nord was the penultimate stop on her six-date mini-tour in the U.S., promoting her recently released five-song acoustic EP (which each attendee received a copy of). It was admittedly quite an experience to be able to be in a room of less than a hundred kids with an artist who fills far larger venues in another country.
Opening was “Shake-A-Billy” indie darling Rachel Goodrich, hailing from Miami, Florida. Through her 30 minute set of perfect vocals, distorted, open-tuning acoustic guitar (sometimes played with a slide), and kazoo/ukulele/charango work, Goodrich was able to, for the most part, win over a crowd of impatient LIGHTS fans just enough to make them look up from their iPhone 4s. She did so with her absolutely tremendous talent and versatility, as well as the kind of quirky personality that Zooey Deschanel gets paid millions to affect in films. Goodrich’s labeled debut is helmed by veteran producer Greg Wells, and hopefully it will feature songs that are more lyrically memorable than what she performed on this night.
Nursing a glass of white wine (that still looked full by the end of the night), LIGHTS took the stage a little before 9pm to more than a few shrilly screams from excited fans, and proceeded to display both her top-notch songwriting skills and her humble, affable, utterly nerdy personality.
Wielding a small-bodied Taylor, she performed stripped-down versions of most of the cuts from her major-label debut The Listening, as well as a few early/unreleased tunes and a cover of the Rancid classic “Fall Back Down.” Before “River,” she summed up the entire point of the acoustic EP and tour, noting that the song was one of the most-produced on the record but turned out to be a very sensitive, soft acoustic tune. Indeed, my guest on this night, who listened to The Listening exclusively in her SmartCar for at least a few months, commented that “River” was usually a song she skipped, but became one of the highlights of the show, with LIGHTS gently plucking an arpeggio and revealing the fragile idealism that makes up the emotional core of the tune.
Other highlights included an incredibly sparse, almost haunting rendition of “Second Go,” touching versions of “Drive My Soul” and “The Listening,” an affecting piano-only reading of “Pretend,” a pulsing version of the near-ballad “Quiet” that worked about the same acoustically as it does produced, and an encore that featured what might have been the best song of the night in the unreleased “The Pity Scene” (which was written with a friend and not a collaborator), and a great new track called “Cactus in the Valley.” Perhaps the most riveting moment in the set was “Face Up,” a raw, disarmingly honest song about overcoming disappointment and pain that had the crowd enraptured.
Some of the songs did miss the mark, such as the early track “Casanova” (a fan favorite for sentimental reasons but weak both melodically and lyrically) and the poppy singles “Saviour” and “February Air,” both not holding up to the stripped-down ethos of the night as well as many of the other songs. Perhaps this is why she chose not to include “Ice” on this night, her most unabashedly-produced pop song.
In-between truly authentic moments recounting writing a song at an early age about the film “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids” and admitting that she had limited relationship experience (“It’s called playing Warcraft too much!” she lamented), it was clear that this is an artist with rare, exceptional talent as a songwriter, one who comes thankfully devoid of delusion and the need to prove anything to faceless, fabricated “haters.” She is simply a person trying to make it through life, and you really feel like you know her. This genuineness is probably the biggest reason why she isn’t as big in the U.S. LIGHTS is a pop star who tweets about her WoW server going down, a stunningly gorgeous girl whose arguably most-quoted lyric is “How can you love me/When I am ugly?”. Yet, although she might not ever sellout Madison Square Garden for a five-date stand, she will presumably never have trouble selling out venues like Café Du Nord, even years after she’s faded from the limelight.
Tags: cafe du nord, lights, san francisco
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