NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
After previewing a lot of new music during Lauren Mayberry’s first solo tour in 2024, we were finally able to listen to her full studio album “Vicious Creature” when it was released in November. The songs on the album can’t really be locked down into a single genre, poppy but not, dance but not, punk but not. With Mayberry being very outspoken about misogyny and other social and political issues, I had expected the record to be a bit more political but perhaps that’s not what she was shooting for. In support of her first record, she embarked on a tour across North America, stopping at Electric City in Buffalo on a snowy Saturday night, February 8th.
The opener was an electronic artist from New York City, Cult of Venus. Besides being an accomplished musician, she has made a name for herself as an activist supporting women’s rights and the environment and for having done residencies in all-women prisons. Playing in mostly dim lighting, alternating between keyboards and guitar, the enigmatic artist played a brief set (not surprising since I could only find three songs online. However, she will be releasing her next single “Algorithm” via Liberty Belle / Futures on February 14th, a protest song just in time for Valentine’s Day!! Her first EP of the same name will follow on May 9th! Definitely check her out!
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Before Mayberry’s set, she spoke to the crowd through the venue’s sound system and encouraged her fans to donate to that day’s charity with each donation entered in a raffle for a signed setlist. She has been doing a different charity at each stop, showing her support locally whenever possible.
When she finally hit the stage, you could already see the changes from her first tour as her band was reduced to drummer Marian Li-Pino and guitarist Heather Nation. This meant more of the instrumentation would be on backing tracks but it also means more control and a tighter sound. She kicked off her set with “Crocodile Tears”, a dance-able track that really got the show going! Her telephone prop was perfect as she sang the opening lines into the handset. “You pick up the phone to start a chain reaction. I’m ringing my bell, I’m hanging on the ropes”. Donning a baby-doll dress (it seems she has something different planned for every show), she moved around the stage, showing love to fans on all sides. Besides her signature spin moves, she often sat down on the slightly elevated part of the stage which, made things seems close and personal yet may have been difficult to see from the back. She didn’t speak too often but, when she did, her wit was on point and had the crowd laughing. “Water bottle” without pronouncing the “t” indeed! It was her first time in Buffalo and, although the venue wasn’t completely sold out, the crowd of fans were excited and boisterous.
The set comprised of the whole “Vicious Creature” album (as expected) as well as a cover of a wonderful cover of the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, which she starts singing slowly while playing keyboards before the rest of the band joins in on the second verse and the tempo picks up. Before “Something in the Air”, Mayberry lamented about the state of the US’s political situation and indicated that this song was the only real political song on her album. And even though “Sorry Etc” is NOT a political song, she did say it was “noisy and angry and pissed off and stuff”. Fun! My favorite song of the set though was “Oh Mother”, a very personal song that she’s surprised she doesn’t cry on more often. During this song, Heather Nation switched from guitar to keyboards and Marian Li-Pino played guitar instead of drums. She wrapped up the night with “Sunday Best”, the most optimistic song on the set, on which she also banged away on a tom! I saw this quite a bit 10-15 yrs ago and actually didn’t know we were doing that anymore. Perhaps Mayberry was living out some things that she didn’t get to do with Chvrches! It was a fun ending to a spectacular show! If you’re in the path of her tour, please go see her perform live. She’ll be on tour in North America through February, wrapping up at the Belasco in Los Angeles on March 2nd, before touring the UK in March.
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