NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
It seems we’re seeing more multi-talented Gen Z artists nowadays; young men and women who make music, act, model, paint, etc. One such talent Charlotte Lawrence is currently on tour to support her debut studio album Somewhere, released on June 27th of this year. Coming from an artistic family (mom Christa Miller is an actress and dad Bill Lawrence is a TV producer), she developed an interest in music at a young age. At just eighteen, she released her debut EP, appropriately called Young, and soon signed with Atlantic Records. Songs from earlier in her career always seemed to remind me of one pop singer or another, mostly Taylor Swift, but on her latest record, I feel like she’s more confident and has found here own voice. Definitely check out Somewhere if you get the chance. Lawrence is in the midst of a tour at intimate venues throughout North America and stopped by the Drake Underground on Monday, August 4th, which happened to be Civic Holiday in Ontario.
Opening this evening was Nashville based indie pop artist Taylor Bickett who’s single “Quarter Life Crisis” went viral in 2022. It was her first show supporting Charlotte Lawrence on this tour and she seemed a bit nervous, letting the crowd know that she was probably going to mess up, and she promptly had to restart her first song. Kinda adorable. Her lovely voice and acoustic guitar accompaniment were perfectly matched to her personal heartfelt lyrics. Bickett also supports various charities raising awareness and preventing violence against women. When doing a bit of research, I found an essay she had written about a violent encounter she had in 2023, something that many women have experienced. Please read and support if inclined: https://atwoodmagazine.com/whm2502-taylor-bickett-womens-history-month-essay-the-crime-of-being-a-woman-2025/
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Rather than touring with a full band, Charlotte Lawrence entered the stage with just a single guitarist/keyboardist Matt. Intimate shows like this and others at the Drake Underground really gives fans the opportunity to experience music in their raw form: no huge production, no Auto-tune or lip-synching to a track. Want to actually hear your favorite artist? This is the way. Lawrence kicked off her set with “I Don’t Wanna Dance” and “Morning” from her recent release. She reminds the audience that “I’ll mess up, I’ll curse too much, I’ll do weird shit”. I don’t know about the first two but I can vouch for the second, “bitch” being the most used this evening. he interacted with her fans quite a bit during the show and told stories about almost every song: “I wrote this one with both my current boyfriend and my ex-boyfriend”. “I was breaking hearts left and right”, and “If I sleep with you, you should expect a song to be written about you”. One thing she mentioned that she felt strongly about was that she was against the use of AI in music. Art is about the human element. Amen!
Charlotte Lawrence’s setlist was primarly songs from Somewhere (as expected) with a couple of songs thrown in from her previous two EPs and an inspired cover of Dora Jar’s “Lucky”. Her voice was crystal clear, stronger in chest voice and light and airy in head voice, but always feeling every lyric. You can hear the emotion when her voice breaks on “Bodybag”. My favorite track of the night was probably “Hollywould” but it could easily have been any number of songs in the set. Lawrence has drawn larger crowds in bigger venues but, if you get the chance to catch her on this current tour of intimate shows, you’ll get to see a star before she goes nova!
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