Gig review: she’s green at The Lower Third
With an attentive crowd hanging on every song, she’s green’s London show builds from a gentle opening to an unplanned encore.
Away from the harsh breezes assailing the bustling central London streets, I find myself protected in The Lower Third, where it is several degrees warmer than the surface. It is just as packed with people, however, as we all gather and wait for American indie-rockers she’s green to take the stage.
Their arrival is preceded by Sandhouse’s moody and wonderfully cosy alt-rock set. The openers’ frontwoman, Anna Sutherland, bewitches the crowd as she dances whimsically up and down the stage, holding eye contact with the people in the front couple of rows as if they were all feeding off each other’s energy. With ease, Sandhouse set the tone for the evening and, with that, the dreamy atmosphere is prepped and palpable by the time she’s green start their set.
Kicking things off with ‘locket’, the band take to the stage with softness and an undeniable familiarity. Singer Zofia Smith’s voice fits so seamlessly with the band’s instruments that it almost becomes one, too. There is something equally eerie and comforting about her stage presence, and as we reach the third song of the evening, ‘purple’, the band bring a new level of energy to that initial softness. Their rhythm section, bassist Teddy Nordvold and drummer Kevin Seebeck, particularly stand out here, and the song somehow feels immaculately grounded and airy all at once.
From my spot at the back of the room, I find that the crowd seems quiet but perfectly attentive. They don’t sing along to every word at the top of their lungs; those who are dedicated fans still sing, but relatively quietly, their attention devoted to the band’s ethereal performance. It’s as if the room has been hypnotised, like sailors drawn to a gentle siren, waiting with bated breath for the next song to draw them further down into the water.
About halfway through the set, Smith asks who amongst the concertgoers lives in London. ‘You’re really lucky,’ she tells them, an ocean away from her home in Minnesota. It’s at around this point in the concert, as the band play the end of ‘graze’, that I realise they excel at the nearly lost art of writing and playing an outro. And if the future of excellent outros were to rest upon their shoulders, I’d be confident that it would be a bright one.
After gradually picking up the pace with a masterfully crafted setlist, the band reach what they had planned to be their penultimate song, ‘mandy’. It’s the first time I hear the crowd sing the lyrics loudly, and it is clear that they are invested in every word. With ‘close your eyes’, she’s green leave the stage, giving us yet another outstanding outro. That would have been our send-off, had they not been persuaded to return by their fans’ very passionate chants of ‘one more song!’
‘We weren’t planning on it, but we love London, so…’ Smith tells us. Someone in the crowd shouts an ardent song request: ‘wakes!’ The band let us know they haven’t played this in a long time, but fall back into the song with such ease we would never have guessed. ‘Syndulla’, the actual final song of the night, comes after a brief warm-up from Seebeck and a request from Smith for the crowd to ‘go crazy’. The crowd, of course, obliges without protest, and just like that, she’s green bring what was a truly special gig to its end.
Photography By: Liam Armstrong