Free at Noon Flashback: Lydia Loveless rocks out, gets introspective at World Cafe Live

Lydia Loveless | photo by Tiana Timmerberg for WXPN

Owning the stage with her confident twang, Ohio’s Lydia Loveless showed World Cafe Live her ear-pleasing blend of country, alt-rock and pop with a half-hour set that went by way to quickly. Busting out a majority of her 2016 release Real, Loveless is a true artist’s artist, focusing on nothing but her vision.

Drawing quite an excitable crowd, Loveless approached the stage with a starburst Fender Telecaster in hand and a embroidered leather strap bearing her name on her shoulder, exuding the fact that she is Lydia Loveless, and loves to be just that. Bringing along four gentleman for musical accompaniment (guitarists Jay Gasper and Todd May, husband Ben Lamb on bass, and drummer George Hondroulis), Loveless quickly showed her seasoned chops by breaking into “European”, the eighth track off of Real. Taking lead guitar duties for this track and more, she created a personal but easily entertaining atmosphere any human with ears would enjoy.

The set was never based on gimmicks or in between song antidotes, and Loveless seems to have wanted it that way. Quietly thanking audience members after only a couple songs, her presence never distracted listeners from the actually music at hand. Songs like “Out on Love” and “Longer” showed the diversity of her band’s style (adding subtle elements of synth and indie rock much to the crowds cheers) and wonderful lyrical work by tackling elements of both figuring out love (“How could love like this exist? / Feels more perfect with every kiss / Now I’m walking away / I don’t want to miss/out on love”) and getting over it (“I want to wake up everyday with you / but I need to get a clue, it’s true”). Ending the set with a solo rendition of title track “Real,” Loveless’ voice intimately confirmed she is a one-of-a-kind genre-blending master of the stage.

Check out more photos from the set below, along with the audio and setlist. Loveless will be performing for XPN November 11th at MilkBoy, and tickets can be found here.

Setlist
European
Midwestern Guys
Bilbao
More Than Ever
Longer
Out On Love
Same To You
Real