Concert Review: lovelytheband Spreads the Love at High-Energy D.C. Show

Elyssa Dalaker

Last Friday, October 12th, I was lucky enough to see lovelytheband perform a sold-out show at downtown D.C.’s Rock and Roll Hotel.

Known primarily for this year’s breakout single “broken,” lovelytheband is comprised of lead vocalist Mitchy Collins, the baby-faced, freshly-turned-22 Jordan Greenwald on guitar, and drummer Sam Price, whose big glasses and bigger hair make him look like a walking 80’s movie. Their breakout single “broken” is currently climbing the charts and creeping onto mainstream radio– you’ve probably found that you’re unable to escape it, whether you’re slumped in the back of an Uber or waiting in line at Starbucks. Luckily, it’s pretty catchy.

The show kicked off almost an hour late, which didn’t do much to satiate the mob of teenagers impatiently mulling around the packed room. Lovelytheband was preceded by 2 opening acts: Blacktop Queen, an L.A.-based duo whose music is reminiscent of All Time Low, and Morgan Saint, a pixie haired beauty who fluttered around the stage with a dreamy elegance and a voice to match. They were a great way to begin the show– but the energy in the room was anticipatory, and the crowd was clearly saving their energy (and their voices) for the main event.

The band opened their 90-minute set with the high-energy track “pity party” off of their debut album finding it hard to smile, and neither the mood nor the roar of the crowd died down from there. They immediately launched into the painfully contagious anthem “make you feel pretty” (and with midterms behind us, I can definitely say that I relate to the lyric ‘Oh my God, my life is such a mess’).

Mitchy Collins, the effervescent front-man of the band, acknowledged their presence in the nation’s capital by donning a white t-shirt with “F*** TRUMP” scrawled on it in messy black Sharpie. You may recognize Collins’ name or his signature yellow-tinted glasses; before starting lovelytheband in 2017, he gained fame as one-half of the Brooklyn-based indie pop band Oh Honey.

They rounded off the energetic first half of their set with a cover of the classic R&B song “Pony” by Ginuwine, decked out with guitars and a deadly bass line to match. When it came time to slow it down for a few songs, they did so with soft electronic beats and even softer blue lights, encouraging the crowd to sing along to the sweet ballads “coachella” and “your whatever.”

Collins bopped around the stage as if in a trance, very obviously in love with the music they’ve made and commanding the attention of the room while doing so. The crowd responded by sending back just as much love– and one overzealous fan even threw a bra on stage.

The band stopped the set before their last song to talk about World Mental Health Day, which had occurred earlier that week. Collins has infamously been very open about his struggles with mental health, and many of the songs on finding it hard to smile touch on themes of insecurity, anxiety, and most of all, loneliness. He preached to a sweaty, teary-eyed crowd of teenage girls about the importance of self-care and self-respect, only to jump in the crowd to sing “broken.” After the encore wrapped up with “these are my friends,” the band exited with the same mystique they had entered with, tossing their picks into the crowd and shuffling off-stage as the lipstick kiss projected on the wall behind them slowly faded to black.

All in all, lovelytheband delivered an incredible performance full of emotion and passion, which really does make all the difference.

And it was, in a word, lovely.

You can stream lovelytheband’s debut album finding it hard to smile HERE:

Make sure you check out my October favorites playlist HERE: