Lucy Dacus ends August leg of tour at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre

On Saturday, August 16th, Lucy Dacus celebrated her last night of the Forever Is A Feeling Tour — at least, her August run — at the historic Greek Theatre located within UC Berkeley. Doors opened at 6:30, but lines were already wrapped down the street well before 6pm, marking the sign of a great show to come. When they did open the doors, I witnessed a stampede of anxious Lucy Dacus fans rush to the barrier to be as close as possible to the 3x GRAMMY-winner and boygenius star. 

Supporting for the August shows was Melina Duterte, aka Jay Som.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Jay Som was more than happy to share the last show of her portion of the tour with her family and friends, who happened to be in the audience this night, making it extra special. Although Som is a multi-instrumentalist, usually recording all instruments herself, Som chose to dominate on bass live, backed by a tight band. Some fans recognized Som immediately as the live bassist for boygenius, making her the perfect person to open Lucy’s set.

Being a hometown show for Som, her clearly dedicated fans were hyped, dancing to all her heavy-hitting songs. Jay Som’s set went out on a high note with one of her most recent songs featuring Jim Adkin’s (of Jimmy Eat World) entitled “Float”. This and another new song, “Cards On The Table”, will be featured on Som’s first album in six years, Belong, out October 10th via Polyvinyl. 

As Lucy Dacus took the stage, she opened with “Hot N Heavy” — making everyone red in the face.

The backdrop of a white curtain fell with elaborate art projected on it, similar to the album art of Dacus’ latest, Forever Is A Feeling LP. Ripping right into the second song, one of the top new singles, “Ankles”, Dacus gave fans no time to catch their breath. The audience was then treated to “Modigliani” flowing seamlessly into “Limerance”; it was then that Lucy Dacus sat down for an intimate, quiet moment with her audience.

“First Time” was next from the 2021 release Home Video, accompanied by the iconic album art broadcasted behind the singer-songwriter, before “VBS” (from the same album) was performed and, let me tell you, these two songs back-to-back had the crowd HOPPING. Lucy Dacus then played “Talk” and hit single “Best Guess” from Forever Is A Feeling before a HUGE highlight of the night.

Lucy brought out 11 special couples and married them all onstage!

Dacus named each couple individually although the vows were done simultaneously. The couples sealed the ceremony with a kiss, while Lucy went around and handed each couple a rose. It was the sweetest thing and the crowd was nothing but supportive! Before we wiped our tears, Dacus hit us with another highlight of the night, the song “Big Deal”, prompting the entire crowd to raise their flashlights for a truly spectacular moment.

The newlyweds walked out during that song and the crowd cheering as they passed was deafening. Lucy took a minute after this to say how beautiful it was to witness these happy couples from her perspective, saying something along the lines of “I can’t believe I get to experience such magical moments like this”. Lucy also shared with the audience that this was probably one of her favorite shows of the tour and that her very first show she ever sold out was at San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop in 2016.

Lucy Dacus then launched into “Brando” by popular demand, followed by another deep cut, “My Mother & I”. For this, Lucy brought the energy down a notch while the screen behind her projected shooting stars. The following songs were newer releases, “Bus Back To Richmond” and “Bullseye”, the latter featuring Hozier although Jay Som came back out to do his part. “Most Wanted Man Alive” was played next, picking the energy back up. Lucy Dacus then introduced her band before “I Don’t Want To Be Funny Anymore” — another Lucy Dacus deep cut.

“Lost Time” and tour namesake “Forever Is a Feeling” were played last before an epic encore.

And the crowd was loud as hell for it. Lucy came back out after a brief disappearance to perform boygenius track “True Blue”, followed by the INSANE song that is “Night Shift”. All in all, Lucy has such an enchanting presence composed of storytelling; how can you not fall in love with Lucy? Another stretch of her tour is about to kick off this September, so don’t miss Lucy Dacus and her Forever Is A Feeling Tour if it’s headed near you. 

Photography by Katey Schoenberger

Share this article

or