Review | Lord Huron at The Kia Forum

Most people had a pandemic hobby that they fell headfirst into in 2020. For some, it was sourdough bread baking (like my mom). I also had some friends really get into online shopping, painting, and sculpting. But the one that ended up sticking for me was vinyl collecting. 

There’s a really cool record store near where I used to live, and I remember calling them asking if they had a 45 of “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron, since it wasn’t posted anywhere, including their website. He checked the back for me and, lo and behold, they had a bunch of copies they never put out hanging in the back. I thanked him profusely, then drove over immediately to grab one. 

That was the memory that popped into my head as I saw Lord Huron perform the song live this week at The Kia Forum. A staple for fans of the indie/singer-songwriter genre, Lord Huron is an L.A. band consisting of Mark Barry on drums, percussion; Miguel Briseño on bass, keyboard, and theremin; Tom Renaud on guitar, and founder Ben Schneider on guitar and lead vocals. Their sound is a mixture of folk rock, western, rock, and pop, and has an ethereal and atmospheric quality to it. 

The show started off with “Who Laughs Last,” “Looking Back,” and “Bag of Bones.” The band walked out while Schneider sang into a telephone attached to cord, which allowed the vocals to have a muffled effect. “After three hours at the wheel, I found myself beyond the borders of my experience. From there it was one alien world after another, ghost towns, painted deserts, hamburger stands, neon temples.” The stage captured the themes of the music well, with videos of cars driving through old, abandoned towns.

Highlights also included fan favorites “Ends of the Earth,” “Meet Me in the Woods,” and “I Lied,” that saw the crowd singing along, swaying with their friends, arms draped around each other in the crowd. It was really sweet to see, I had never really seen a crowd react in that way. 

And, of course, as I mentioned, they played their smash hit “The Night We Met.” The crowd screamed as Schneider sang the opening lines “I am not the only traveler who has not repaid his debt. I’ve been searching for a trail to follow again. Take me back to the night we met.” Schneider pointed to the crowd to sing my favorite line. “I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.” 

The show closed with an encore of “The World Ender,” “Nothing I Need,” “Not Dead Yet,” and “Life Is Strange.”

The opener, Feist, was a huge part of my childhood, and did an incredible job onstage before Lord Huron’s set. Highlights included “Let It Die” and “1234.”

It was a nostalgic night that felt like it was a distant memory even as it was happening. Thank you, Lord Huron, for the incredible show, and thank you, kind record store guy, for looking and putting that record on hold for me (that record now goes for, at cheapest, $88 on Discogs shipped to the U.S. and I was able to get it for $7.99).