After embarking on her “Baby, I’m Back” tour, Lights makes her momentous return to Houston with special guest tiLLie.
On April 13th, the White Oak Music Hall was double-booked with two ongoing shows that night,, but it didn’t stop us from catching Lights at the downstairs stage. Most recently, Lights released her 5th album PEP, the first album under her new record label Fueled by Ramen, and subsequently headed out on a North American spring tour shortly after its release. The last time Lights performed in Houston was in 2019, where she opened up for electronic artist DeadMau5. Seeing her headline the show was such an immaculate experience.
Starting off the night was opener tiLLie, and everyone immediately fell in love with her. While she was riddled with technical difficulties towards the beginning of her set, she turned the night around and played many of her hits as well as a few songs. There were two parts of the show that particularly stood out – her flawless cover of Britney Spears’ “Lucky” and the fact that one of her songs (“Mood Swings”) was based on an experience she had in Houston during Warped Tour. Her sweet personality and fun banter on stage was very enticing, which was a perfect leeway to the main performance of the night.
As soon as Lights took the stage, everyone started cheering and screaming for the singer. The Canadian singer is currently being accompanied on tour by The Summer Set drummer Jess Bowen and touring guitarist Brodie Tavares. So far, Lights plays a completely different setlist at each show, which made it so much more exciting as fans didn’t know the musical route she would take. She played a mixture of new and old songs such as “In My Head,” “Voices Carry,” “Savage” and “Up We Go.” In a surprising twist, she let the fans choose what solo song she should play and eventually performed “Banner” from her second studio album Siberia. All in all, Lights’ vibrant stage presence and interactions with the crowd made it such a great performance overall.
Check out some photos of the show:
I'm a full-time music journalist/photographer from Houston, number one Paramore fan and Husky dog owner. I have a B.S in Radio-Television-Film from UT Austin and a M.A in Mass Communications from the University of Houston, which makes me smart! On top of being an avid concert-goer and movie fanatic, I love bonding with others over the power of local music and media.
