Leith Ross @ Lincoln Hall
On the rainiest of days, Leith Ross graced us with their presence at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall. I nestled myself in the balcony with a view that looked onto the sold-out crowd below. I observed some moms bonding after one of the openers finished; they talked about how they loved Leith’s music and pointed out where their respective children were down in the pit.
Ross took the stage alongside multiple band members - I was surprised by this as I was expecting it to be a fairly stripped back show since I had primarily seen their songs performed acoustically online. They wore a baseball cap, jeans, and a t-shirt and could've easily passed off as a student of DePaul University, which is located down the street from Lincoln Hall.
Leith Ross has the soothing voice of your favorite Kindergarten teacher, one that is so unbelievably wise and all-knowing. They hypnotize you, making you fully believe that everything they said to the mic was gospel – and I was firmly under this spell. I felt like this was best heard through the song “Music Box”. This song painted such a detailed sense of time and place – maybe somewhere you went on vacation or in a dream, either way, it captured a location you fantasized about forever.
Every band member was multifaceted, each playing a few different instruments; banjos, mandolins, guitars, keys, and glockenspiels all became a part of the musical equation that was the concert. The band’s drummer was off for the day as he was graduating college - Ross made multiple comments about how the performance sounded so off to them, but the music didn’t feel any less lush to me.
They explained their hesitancy to play “(You) On My Arm,” due to the song’s heavy use of drums, but Leith played it anyways and introduced the song by saying, “Scream if you’re gay”; it was the loudest the room was all evening.
Otherwise, the crowd was incredibly respectful and almost timid at times, but this doesn’t mean that they weren’t passionate - I heard some actual weeping, which wasn’t surprising due to the somber subject matter of the music. Leith and their band had a giggle fit at one point, and it was rather ironic due to the melancholy nature of the show. Leith identified the kind of laughing as the kind that happens with your best friend in the middle of class, at the exact time you’re not supposed to laugh, which only makes everything funnier.
The sound was so crisp; every breath vibrated through the room. I bet I could hear someone blink through that microphone. Leith’s music was soft and folksy, but it wasn’t meek and didn’t shy away from challenging the listener. They closed the show with “We’ll Never Have Sex”, a track of theirs that blew up on Tiktok.
The show made me fall deeper in love with their music. I did feel like the setlist was a bit short as I was taken aback when it was over. Usually, I felt the natural conclusion of a concert, but it didn’t have that sense of completion. Nonetheless, I feel lucky that I saw them perform in such an intimate venue. I can see them selling out rooms that are double, triple the size of Lincoln Hall. This tour in particular is almost completely sold out, so if there’s a chance to grab some tickets to a stop in your town, don’t hesitate.