Fresh off her performance on Late Night with Seth Myers, Alex Lahey gave DC9 a welcome taste of rock and roll.
From Melbourne, Alex joked about how there are lots of bands from Australia these days*, where of course they all know each other, and rode to school together on kangaroos. And at their frequent group meetings they collectively decided that ‘DC is a city that loves music!’
At least on this night it proved true, the full DC9 crowd bristled with anticipation before Alex and her backing band of three came on stage and awarded us the anthemesque “Every Day’s The Weekend” as a fitting kick off to a Sunday show.
Alex seemed pleased to be here as she marveled, ‘There were not quite so many people here at the beginning of the year when I came. This is a crowd. I am really humbled!’
Supporting her first album, I Love You Like A Brother, her name did get better known, as the album doesn’t have a bad song on it. Not one.
Playing before the stylish new DC9 logo, she played two more standouts from the album early, “Perth Traumatic Stress Disorder” – about a bad breakup in Perth, yet ‘Perth is lucky that she’s pretty, otherwise, I’d hate that city’ and “Awkward Exchange” – a pop ditty about taking back what’s yours, and my favorite pronunciation of the phrase ‘you’re a bit of dick’.
Aside from giving DC props as ‘truly the nation’s capital’, she joked about future shows on her tour, like in Salt Lake City where one of the band members will turn 30, so it’s ‘one of those challenge accepted moments’ while being in America.
The highlight from the new album for me is “Backpack” with the lyrics, ‘It’s hard for me to put my arms around you when your backpack’s on’. Hey, so don’t leave! In all she played seven songs from I Love You Like A Brother, of her 11-song set (sadly no encore).
The second to last song was the fun “Let’s Go Out” from her original EP titled B-Grade University. An upbeat driving chorus of ‘Let’s go out and have fun tonight, let’s go out and get drunk tonight.’ It appeared the crowd was on board with this sentiment.
The openers were Dude York from Seattle (pretty good), who apparently drove five days just to meet up with her for the tour. As well they should have.
Get yourself a copy of Alex’s new album, and keep checking your interwebs for any new tour dates in DC!
Setlist
Every Day’s The Weekend
Wes Anderson
Perth Traumatic Stress Disorder
Awkward Exchange
Ivy League
Let’s Call It A Day
I Love You Like A Brother
Backpack
I Haven’t Been Taking Care of Myself
Let’s Go Out
You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me
Here’s Alex’s rendition of “Backpack” from the November 19th DC9 show!
* Could be true, I recently saw the Australians Gordi at Songbyrd Music House and Betty Who at All Things Go Fall Classic.
A DC Journey 
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