Music/Live Reviews

Who: Lizzy McAlpine
Where: Budweiser Stage, 909 Lake Shore Blvd. W.
When: Wed., Aug. 8
Vibe: Intimate, thoughtful, bluesy hangout
Highlight: doomsday, featuring lush live orchestration
Next: A few months off before kicking off the Older tour’s international leg in Brussels
Rating: NNN (out of 5)

WHEN LIZZY McALPINE cancelled the EU/U.K. leg of her tour in 2023, she vowed to return to touring only if she could figure out a way to reduce the mental and physical toll of live performance. Before that announcement, she’d been through it all: laryngitis, pneumonia and the flu, not to mention intense emotional burnout.

That’s why the Older tour looks a little different from other acts that have graced Budweiser Stage. McAlpine sits for most of the set, contemplatively nodding along as she strums an acoustic guitar or slaloms her fingers between the keys of an upright piano. She doesn’t talk much during the concert, providing only as much context to her songs as is absolutely necessary. When she does speak, it’s to make a self-deprecating joke or to apologize for the bugs swarming the spotlight in front of her face.

What stands out about the Older tour is its setlist, which features nearly all of McAlpine’s most recent album and precious few nods to the earlier work that vaulted her to indie-pop stardom in the afterglow of the pandemic. The viral ceilings is an encore — apparently moved from the beginning of the show to keep people from leaving, McAlpine shared in a recent interview — and other fan favourites like doomsday and chemtrails are spread throughout the set like candy, padded with bluesy, broodier deep cuts from Older.

Such an intimate set in a venue as large as Bud Stage might work under perfect conditions, but alas, the evening struggles from repeated sound issues, from microphone feedback to intermittent popping sounds that startle even McAlpine. The mix for the set also veers toward inconsistent; though the band sounds great, they’re often mixed such that they drown out McAlpine, making for a wash of sound that becomes repetitive between songs. Part of what’s made McAlpine so popular over the years is her lyricism — too often, that’s lost here.

Visually, it’s a pleasant enough concert: The slight set mirror s the décor of Nuffer Ranch, where McAlpine and her band recorded much of the Older album, emulating the folksy living room feel of Noah Kahan’s recent Scotiabank Arena stop.

But the stripped-down design falls victim to a frequent peril of Budweiser Stage — this is a tall, tall venue that often leaves a vortex (pun intended, for McAlpine fans) of negative space above the heads of the performers. Given McAlpine’s set is so sonically similar, it might have been interesting to play with more visuals for the concert — even a slideshow of pictures or arty graphics could have been a nice addition to the video screens that flank Bud Stage — but as is, the concert is much more an experience in listening than in watching and falls short of the sensory catharsis audiences have come to expect from live performance.

There’s a certain double edge to the Older tour. On the one hand, McAlpine seems to be happier about performing live, and the accommodations made to help her mental and physical health seem to be working, which is great. That said, there remain significant kinks to iron out in the tour’s sound design, the fixing of which will significantly elevate the concert to a more luxurious level. Right now, McAlpine’s voice sounds great, and her songs are as bluesy and emotional as ever. But they’ll be even better when we’re able to hear them.