Lucy Dacus brings her sublime Home Video tour to the UK

Lucy Dacus commenced her Home Video tour with four dates in the UK. This will be followed by a run of European dates, before moving onto New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and back to America, with a number of festivals. It’s set to be a busy year for the ascending singer-songwriter from Virginia. We were fortunate to catch the first night of the tour, a sold out show at The Marble Factory in Bristol, as well as her final UK date at the Concorde 2 in Brighton. Both venues are beautiful historic buildings, lovely settings to enjoy the music. Both shows also had a crowd queue many hours before doors, fortunately both in unseasonably sunny, warm weather in the UK.

Lucy was encouraging all attendees to wear masks for the performance, after she had to cancel the first few UK dates after testing positive for covid. Mask-wearing is not common in the UK at present, but there was extremely high compliance at both venues, a probable reflection of the respect and love the crowd had for the performer.

Home Video is Lucy Dacus’ third studio album, and she played ten of the songs during the set-list for the shows. This included the perhaps surprising use of ‘auto-tune’ for her song “Partner in Crime”, in keeping with the album version. She said this was her “pop-girl moment.” She also played old favourite “Night Shift” from her 2018 album, loved by the crowds with energetic sing-alongs, really special moments. Favourites included her latest release single “Kissing Lessons”, “Brando” from the new album, as well as a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” played as the first song in her encore.

Lucy’s last song of the show was a brand new one, which she played without the band. She asked the crowd not to video it on their phones, as she ‘wanted to be the first to record it’. The entire crowd complied and the numerous phones previously held aloft were put away, everyone being more attentive and ‘in the moment’ as a result. It was a lovely end to the show.

Support was from the superb Fenne Lily and her equally superb band, Kane, James and Joe. Fenne is supporting Lucy on the majority of the tour dates, and they have collaborated in the past. Fenne ended her set with “Berlin” for which Lucy Dacus provided backing vocals on the album recording. Its a great song, beautifully sung and performed by Fenne and her band.