Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre welcomed indie-alt sensation Faye Webster for a lowkey yet electrifying show. Entering the latter half of Webster’s United States/Canada leg of her “Underdressed at the Symphony” tour, the sold-out venue ushered in thousands of eager fans on Wednesday night.
Opening act mei ehara took the stage at around 7:30 p.m. Ehara’s vibey, jazz-adjacent lounge music was the perfect warmup for Webster’s instrumentally-grounded sound; early concertgoers got some practice slowly swaying in anticipation of the mild dance moves they would soon break out for Webster’s set.
Around 9:30 p.m., the two rows of washing machines propped in front of a large, white t-shirt on a hanger were cast in blue light as the house lights darkened and the crowd went wild.
Webster’s set started off with a bang in the form of the jarring ebb and flow of “But Not Kiss.” However, before Webster actually took the stage, a projected recording of a “Despicable Me” (2010) minion-ized Webster sang the first verse in Minionese, prompting screams of what might have been excitement, though could have possibly been terror.
Webster and her band immediately followed up “But Not Kiss” with “Wanna Quit All the Time,” marking an energy shift into her more relaxed songs as the crowd settled in for the show. Her vocals showed restraint with little variation from the recorded version thus far, and the crowd had matched her sense of tension with bouts of silence between songs.
Despite the crowd’s initial muted reactions, an outsider might have thought the audience was at the club when she launched into a jaunty rendition “Thinking About You,” one of Webster’s more upbeat and romantic songs from her latest album, “Underdressed at the Symphony.” She kept this energy going with one of her biggest hits, “Right Side of My Neck,” though she cut the song off halfway through to abruptly start performing “Better Distractions” off of her fourth album, “I Know I’m Funny haha.”
After this five-song run, Faye Webster finally took an opportunity to break the ice with the crowd. As a woman of few words, a little went a long way with a crowd that hung on her every word.
She broke the silence with some Minionese of her own, saying, “What’s up, Los Angeles? So many minions, bello!” The crowd almost didn’t recover before her next song, “Cheers,” which is best experienced live with her incredible band riffing off of each other.
The high-energy song brought the audience into a near frenzy — the pit started moshing — that Webster expertly tamed with one of her more dreamy, romantic tracks, “A Dream With a Baseball Player.”
However, before the crowd could settle down too much, an “Animal Crossing”-inspired graphic depicting a slots machine proclaimed to the crowd that the next song would be “Lego Ring.”
This multi-genre song featured Webster’s longtime friend Lil Yachty. Replacing Yachty’s verse, her drummer performed a solo that brought a fresh spin to the song’s rhythm and was a tasteful way to fill the space, turning the song into a new yet still exciting experience. Webster deftly brought her own silent energy with her playful, textured vocals to make up for the missing presence in the song.
Coasting off of the excitement of the crowd, Webster performed a delightful and intimate rendition of her hit “Jonny,” shedding her guitar for the first time thus far and singing the first half of the song directly to the audience before hopping on keys.
Before the song could end, Faye performed “Jonny (Reprise)” as an accompanied spoken word with improvised cadence that gave new emotional meaning to the recorded version. As the audience soaked in the artistry of her poem, she entered into the sweet and lilting “Lifetime.” Everyone swayed and basked in the romance of her music for the first verse until she created the climax of the show and brought out surprise guest Daniel Caesar.
Suddenly, the chill energy was gone and members of the crowd jumped, screamed and grabbed each other in shock at Caesar’s presence, buzzing long after he had left the stage. “Tttttime” failed to dissipate the audience’s excitement, which only grew when she performed an unreleased sapphic ballad, “After the First Kiss,” that’s sure to be a hit.
The theme of romance remained for the rest of the night as she followed up the new song with “In A Good Way” and a revised version of “He Loves Me Yeah!” with an emphasized lyric change of “She loves me yeah.” Coming six months after her soft launch with fellow musician Deb Never, this pronoun change earned excited cheers from the crowd.
After a minute-long break offstage, Webster started the encore with the charming “Feeling Good Today” and ended the show with a romantic, decadent performance of “Kingston” with the arena receiving a barrage of bubbles from machines on stage.
The laid-back — but definitely not low — energy of Webster’s concert was delightful and left audience members exiting the Greek Theatre with dreamy smiles on their faces as Laila!’s “Not My Problem” ushered them out of the venue.
