Unexpectedly meeting Laufey face-to-face in Vancouver on April 7th and impulsively buying concert tickets to see her first show of Bewitched: The Goddess Tour the next day on my birthday was not something I was expecting to be in my cards for 2024, but you will never catch me complaining. I have always admired Laufey and how much she has accomplished in such a short amount of time. Not just her musical talents, but the challenges that she has faced to get to where she is today, including being a partially Chinese woman growing up in Iceland, and being able to break through in the music industry. “I like how different her songs are from more mainstream music that’s released today and I love her song writing,” explains eighth grader Sadi Ballard. Laufey’s story is inspiring, and her music is relatable to many teens, not just young adults in their twenties. “She makes such relatable music and every song that she releases has fire vocals. Also jazz in general is gas,” says freshman Phoenix Nguyen when explaining why he listens to Laufey.

I went to the opening night of her Goddess Tour in Vancouver, Canada at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on April 8th. This was my first concert, and I did not know what to expect. But, at the venue, every “Lauver” (aka Laufey fan) that I met seemed grateful to be in attendance and I found them to be generally delightful. Not only were they easy to talk to, despite me being socially awkward, they shared a similar admiration and excitement for Laufey’s music. The show itself was mesmerizing, from her vocals to the instruments that she played, everything was as if it were out of a dream. Laufey performed nineteen songs in total, including her most popular songs and an unreleased song, “bored”. The full setlist for this show was:

Intro – Claire de Lune, “While You Were Sleeping”, “Valentine”, “Second Best” (followed by a band improvisation), “Dreamer”, “Falling Behind” (band introduction in outro), “Beautiful Stranger” (cello outro), “I Wish You Love”, “Promise”, “Like the Movies” (with a little bit of her cover/song “Misty”), “Nocturne (Interlude)”, “Let You Break My Heart Again”, “California and Me”, her newest single “Goddess”, “Fragile”, “Bewitched”, “bored” (unreleased), “Lovesick”, and ending with, “From the Start” with an extended violin outro, featuring her twin sister Junia Lín.

Laufey also performed an encore, closing the night with “Letter to My 13 Year Old Self.” While I was hoping she would play “Magnolia” or “James”, experiencing her performance of “Goddess” was soul-shaking. To be honest, I don’t know if “soul-shaking” is a thing, but it sums up how I felt. I could feel the pain behind her lyrics and the emotions that she was emanating, and it was indescribably beautiful how music can achieve such a powerful feeling. Ballard commented that she also wants to “see Goddess live so bad and watch Laufey and Junia perform together.”

Bewitched: The Goddess Tour runs in the U.S. until May 8th. Laufey is performing in several cities across the country, so U.S. fans can experience her captivating show. Sadly, the last concert in California was on April 13th in San Francisco, but after that she is heading to Phoenix, Arizona on April 15th and playing shows in Texas until April 20th. If you missed her this spring, Laufey will be back again this summer, playing at Lollapalooza and the Hollywood Bowl.