As their inflatable alien prop bounced its way through a sea of music enthusiasts Friday night, the four-woman band La Luz rocked their way through another one of their genre-bending numbers.
They began their set by masquerading behind a shiny cartoon sun to Roy Ayers Ubiquity's “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” La Luz’s palpable energy contagiously spread through the packed crowd until they finished their encore over an hour later.
During the show, they performed an array of songs ranging from their debut album to hits from their latest album, “News of the Universe.” Mia Joy, who plays a dream-pop, shoegaze indie, opened the all-women show.
La Luz’s lore, and willingness to break boundaries, spreads beyond their musical abilities. The band is made up entirely of women, something that has always been an aberration in the world of rock. Even as La Luz’s members have cycled through the years, the band has always been made up of women.
“I love seeing small women run local bands playing at venues like this,” Liz, an excited fan, told The Daily Cardinal after the show.
Led by guitarist Shana Cleveland, La Luz is a band without borders. Constrained by no genre, the band plays a unique style of indie that blends the digs of surf-rock with psychedelic melodies, all in a scrappy, garage-rock way.
“It’s like if surf-rock met The Doors with, kinda like, Beatles,” Brian, a La Luz superfan, told the Cardinal.
But if you ask Cleveland herself, she would describe her music differently than anyone at the concert may.
“Doom-wop,” she told the Cardinal.
La Luz, originally formed in California in 2012, is made up of an almost entirely different group since the band’s inception. Cleveland, the leader, is the last holdover.
“I think the sound has changed and evolved over the years, but the basic elements that I had in mind at the beginning of the band are still there," Cleveland said. “Lots of vocal harmonies and solos. Lots of love songs. I think the music has always had a sort of sweet but haunted quality.”
Throughout Friday’s set, the doom Cleveland mentioned was unmistakable. Opening with, “Close Your Eyes,” the haunting instrumental from “News of the Universe," the band cooed eerie “la-la-la’s” behind a series of surf tones.
But, for how ghostly the keyboard may have sounded in their second song of the night, “I Wanna Be Alone (With You),” the mood inside High Noon Saloon was never frightening.
With bassist Lee Johnson’s humming electric bass line, Audrey Johnson’s punchy drumming and Cleveland’s fast paced guitar solos and slowing reverbs tied together by Maryam Qudus’ satisfyingly dark keyboarding, La Luz’s sound exudes a sweet melodrama that never allows the doom to take too much control.
Not to mention Cleveland’s dreamy, echoey vocals, which seem effortless yet provide the perfect touch for songs so excitedly melancholy. As spooky as La Luz’s music may be, the laid-back atmosphere at High Noon Saloon was anything but ominous.
By the time boundary-pushing La Luz was in the midst of playing their final song on the setlist, “California Finally,” they had long won over the hearts of the audience. As Cleveland twirled on stage in the middle of a winding guitar solo, it was beyond evident the crowd had received what it came for: good times, good energy and, most importantly, great music.
