REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY SOPHIE GRAGG ☆
I’VE SEEN STEVE LACY JUST ABOUT EVERY TIME HE’S TOURED - I became a fan back in 2018, when I first heard "C U Girl" and "Dark Red" and got instantly obsessed, and I like to think I got on the Steve Lacy train early. So watching him headline Moody Amphitheater Saturday night felt like a full circle moment. I've seen him at small venues and big ones in LA, and the last time I caught him in Austin was at Emo's. Seeing him sell out an outdoor amphitheater in the same city was a long way from there.
It's wild to look back at how he got here. Steve put out his first music at 18, produced on his phone with GarageBand. From there he went on to produce on Kendrick Lamar's album, win two Grammy Awards, and land two songs in Spotify's Billions Club, all by just 28 years old. He's stood alongside peers like Kendrick and Solange, sells out shows across the globe, and is known as a style maverick whose eye for design keeps getting bolder. Almost ten years after his first EP, he's still one of the most consistently interesting artists working.
The "Oh yeah?" Tour is a 27-city run across North America and his first headline tour since the sold-out Give You The World Tour in 2022. The album it's named for, Oh yeah?, is written, performed, and produced entirely by Steve, and it's his most personal work to date: a record for guitar kids who love synths and synth kids who love guitars, full of raw openness and some of his most transparent lyrics.
He played Oh yeah? in full, front to back, which I loved. I'll admit I hadn't dived into the new album as much as I should have, so hearing it in order in a live setting was the best possible way to really sit with it. It wasn't quite a first listen, but it was the first time I truly processed it, and the songs hit differently with a crowd around me.
The band deserves just as much credit. The instrumental side of the night was one of my favorite parts, with the group stretching out into jam sessions between tracks that gave the show room to breathe. Steve is also as charming and funny as ever. He talks to the crowd like he's hanging out with friends, which makes a show this big feel strangely intimate.
And the crowd was something else. Rain was in the forecast and it drizzled on and off throughout the night, but it didn't matter. The amphitheater was absolutely packed, everyone screamed, and everyone seemed to know every single lyric. I haven't been in a crowd that locked in for a long time. It also skewed young, which surprised me. I know he's hugely popular with Gen Z, but I spent part of the night wondering where the OG Steve Lacy fans like me were. Then he played some of the older music, including "C U Girl," and the whole place lit up just as loudly. The early songs clearly still connect.
Steve Lacy has been talented, consistent, and endlessly himself for almost a decade, and last night was proof that the bigger the stage gets, the better he fits on it. If the "Oh yeah?" Tour comes anywhere near you, go.
