Lucy Dacus performs at The Chicago Theatre in Chicago on May 1, 2025.
By Nina Tadic
Lucy Dacus is forever is a feeling tour is such an intimate, multi-faceted look at how to create a 4-D experience out of an album.
The Chicago Theatre is a venue that is elegant, historical, and cozy – it’s impossible not to feel at home sitting in those red velvet seats, surrounded by people who are all buzzing at the chance to be there. One can only compare the feeling to what it must’ve been like to go to the opera 100 years ago, but on this occasion, it is a night filled with indie music performed by talented women onstage, and people of all ages, primarily twenty and thirty-somethings, there to lose themselves in the music.
Kicking off the night was opener Jasmine.4.t, an insanely talented British singer-songwriter who was absolutely captivating. From the jump she blew the audience out of the water. Soft-crooning and elegant, she strummed her guitar under the pink and blue lights, singing beautiful songs about trans love, romance, and the nuance of the human experience. She was very gracious with the crowd, thanking them multiple times for coming out early enough to see her, and thanking Lucy for having her out. At some point, Katie Gavin, our second opener, also made an appearance to do some vocals, and the harmonies between the two were unreal.
Jasmine.4.t performs at The Chicago Theatre in Chicago on May 1, 2025.
Following Jasmine’s set was Katie Gavin of Muna, performing hits off of her new solo release, What a Relief. Dawning a long black skirt and a sleek black jacket with boots, red hair flowing down her shoulders, she’s every bit of the singer-songwriter of your mother’s generation while also being the singer-songwriter of ours. She appears timeless, and her music is just that, as well. Acoustic guitar in-hand, she belts out beautiful melodies on tracks like “Sweet Abby Girl,” and her performance feels like being at a Jewel concert, or seeing Melissa Etheridge sing “Come to My Window,” especially during tracks like “The Baton,” where she gets the entire crowd singing along.
Gavin, a woman of many talents (and many instruments) also is not shy to pull out her violin throughout her set, as well. She plays it traditionally for some songs, fiddles for others, and strums it like a ukulele at points, as well, but no matter how she plays it, she makes it a tool to amplify her performance tenfold. What seems like a small addition to a performance furthers Katie’s performance as a complete and total stand-out as a versatile artist and performer.
She, just like Jasmine, thanks the crowd incessantly, letting them know that she does have a sweet spot for Chicago (noting she’s from the northern suburbs, but not saying she’s “from Chicago” because folks from Chicago get a little testy about suburbanites claiming their city). She thanks everyone who saw her play her headlining shows at Thalia Hall and at the Chicago Theatre last October in support of her new solo work, and she also makes it a point to remind everyone to wish Lucy a happy birthday, as her birthday is [Saturday] – something that is not a joke, but becomes a running gag throughout the night as the audience banter with Lucy about the last night of her 20s.
Katie Gavin performs at The Chicago Theatre in Chicago on May 1, 2025.
Even though Katie’s solo project/music is far different from her funky pop performances with Muna, it stands out just as strongly, and gets just as much a reaction from the audience. The crowd receives her amazingly, time flies by, and one can only wish it has been longer because every song is a hit. A 13-year-old boy in the audience at some point says “how can people not know who Katie Gavin is? Why isn’t the room completely full for her?” and he’s definitely not the only one sharing the sentiment. It’s no secret that by the next time Katie Gavin plays a show in Chicago, the amount of people who do know who she is will be double if not, triple.
By the time Lucy’s set rolls around, the crowd is chomping at the bit, absolutely dying to experience Forever Is a Feeling. As the lights go out and the curtain covering Lucy’s backdrop is dropped, the audience is transported into a room reminiscent of an art gallery. The back wall of the stage is papered in red and gold filigree with hearts, and large picture frames covering that wall. These frames aren’t empty, however – each one is a screen that changes throughout the night. They shift from pieces of baroque art to windows on a stormy night, portraits of each band member to glowing heavenly light, and even an endless galaxy of shooting stars. This is the perfect match for Lucy’s Forever is a Feeling album artwork and branding, as the whole album cycle so far has centered around renaissance-style art, heavenly skies, and gilded, ornate details. With that said, the album is already becoming a more tactile, tangible thing for the audience from the second the set starts.
Miss Lucy Dacus makes her way onto the stage as “Calliope Prelude” plays, with her beautiful brown hair framing her face, and a soft sweet smile that feels angelic itself under the hazy lights. She kicks off her performance with “Hot & Heavy,” “Ankles,” and “Limerence,” a strong start to the set that leaves her crowd swaying and singing alongside her. Her style is very much her own – a rugby shirt, long black skirt and some high-heeled Mary Janes. She’s funky and cool and completely sure of herself, something that comes with time in the music industry and time performing on a stage. The cadence of her voice is sweet as honey and light as windchimes as she singsongs out a “thank you” to her audience. Her personality is entirely infectious.
Lucy Dacus performs at The Chicago Theatre in Chicago on May 1, 2025.
Accompanied by a four piece band, some of whom play multiple instruments, she brings every song off of Forever is a Feeling to life, as well as a few older fan favorites she has put in the mix. During her set, she makes small talk with the crowd, asking who has seen her previously, reminiscing on performances at The Empty Bottle and house shows, and thinking about how far she has come as a performer. At another point in her set, she remarks that she cannot recall a time when she was younger and attended a concert in a venue as beautiful as this one with the crowd as large. She reminds the crowd how grateful she truly is, and says that she and her companions talk every night about how fantastic and cool this tour has been so far. Audience members also joke that the Chicago Theatre is the perfect venue for Lucy, because it is also angelic and gilded in gold and completely timeless, just like her music. One person remarks that they “built the venue just for her, obviously!”
About halfway through Dacus’ performance, there’s a set change – even though the backdrop stays the same, a stunning, gold-lacquered couch is brought out, complete with blue velvet upholstery, and Miss Lucy takes a seat for just a few songs. “Does anyone remember the tour I played on a couch?” she asks the crowd. “Yeah, I had two herniated discs and I had to do a whole tour sitting down – and even though my back is better now, I still like to sit down,” she says as the audience chuckles. She makes them feel like family when she talks to them so casually, and it is entirely lovely. During a quiet moment while she sips her tea, a fan shouts, “Happy birthday, Lucy!” to which she sing-songs another “thank yooooou,” proceeding to tell everyone that this is the last night of her twenties. “Everyone’s always told me that your twenties are better than your teens, and your thirties better than your twenties, and your forties better than your thirties, so I’m excited to see how true that is!”
For the song “Bullseye” which typically features Hozier, she welcomes a guest onstage, something that has become a tradition every night at the tour. Tonight’s guest? Julia Steiner of the Chicago band Ratboys. Lucy is very gracious as she lets everyone know that they invited Steiner an hour before soundcheck to perform, and she was happy to oblige. “Make sure you can do an Irish accent,” Lucy jokes. When it gets to Julia’s part of the song, it becomes very quickly apparent that her mic is not working, but without missing a beat, Lucy just turns hers and the two shimmy a little closer on the couch, facing one another as they share a microphone for the harmonies. Being a performer means rolling with the punches, and these two have got it down.
Lucy Dacus performs at The Chicago Theatre in Chicago on May 1, 2025.
Towards the end of her set, Lucy makes the comment that at “this point of the night where we get to the time where I just look around and ask myself ‘did the show even happen?’ because unfortunately it’s almost over.” To this, the crowd begins to “boo,” and object, and Lucy begins to giggle and says “yeah and at this point, everyone boos and says ‘no,’ which is actually kind of freaking scary,” and then she laughs some more.
She spoils the crowd with one or two more songs before briefly leaving the stage pre-encore. Walking through the door in her backdrop, she is showered in a halo of glowing white light. The stage goes black, everyone screams and cheers – no one is new to this game. Lucy comes back out on stage with her band and spoils the crowd even further with their performance of boygenius’ “True Blue” and then closes with one of her fans’ favorites, “Night Shift.” The first half of “Night Shift,” she performs solo while her band watches from the wings, and then at the bridge, the song transforms from something soft and calm into a shroud of visceral energy, glowing lights, guitars being shredded, heads being banged, and everyone screaming the lyrics, each person feeling like the only person in the room. It is captivating, it is magical and it is cathartic – the perfect end to a beautiful concert. Lucy may just be entering her thirties, but she has the performance skills of someone far her senior. Forever is a feeling, and the crowd now knows it well, after watching Lucy Dacus perform this stunning, artful body of work.
(Photos and review by Nina Tadic – follow Nina on Instagram at @ninatadiccreative)
