Lake Street Dive At The Wiltern

Lake Street Dive’s performance at The Wiltern is riddled with cleverness, innovation, and genre-defying instrumentals and melodies.

Lake Street Dive’s newest album: Obviously.

My friend and I drove past the Wiltern in LA last Friday night and saw the sign brightly proclaim that Lake Street Dive was playing on Saturday. I had never heard of Lake Street Dive nor heard one of their songs. So after buying our tickets about 5 minutes later, I was excited to go to a concert with utterly no expectations.

We arrived during Allison Russells set, it was quite a moody scene with heavy ambiance. Russell’s set seemed to be indie-folk with hints of soul vocals. For one of her last songs, her husband came out and the two sang close to each other while peering into each other’s eyes and singing harmonies. The song and performance were emotional, intimate, and convincing. Russell really convinced the audience then and there of her pure talent as a songstress. After the loud roar of applause for Russell, the talk of excitement for Lake Street Dive was buzzing through the air. When the band came out, which included a guitarist, keyboardist, drummer, and a double bassist, lead singer, Rachael Price, shortly followed. Comments of “how cool she is” could be heard within the audience. Price exuded confidence, joy, and had a large cool factor. Most of all, Price had vocals that are quite rare in this day and age, vocals with jazzy and bluesy influences. Lake Street Dive itself is a multi-genre band varying from alternative to southern rock to indie to blue-eyed soul.

Douglas Mason. WireImage.

Throughout their set, Lake Street Dive seemed to break out of every box. The highlight for the band’s show seemed to be the performance of the song …Being a Woman. The song is written by Bridget Kearney, the double bassist. The lyrics are clever, creative, and candidly convey the realities of women. The lyrics also agreeably suit Price’s soulful and jazzy vocals. The pinnacle of the show was Akie Bermiss, the keyboardist’s, time in the spotlight. Akie performed his single Alone Again. Alone Again delivers a song with wittiness, relatability, and relevant humor with a piano background and catchy tune. The entire song is riddled with creativity from melody to lyrics to beginning to end.

Akie Bermiss. Photo from First Avenue.

Akie was so talented and polished as a musician that I thought that he reminded of Robert Cray and Stevie Wonder. Ultimately Lake Street Dive’s innovative band members, genre defying instrumentals and melodies, and skillful talent denotes a dexterous and adept band. 

Lake House Dive’s …Being a Woman

Alone Again by Greg Mayo and Akie Bermiss