Fresh off a summer opening for acts like Sabrina Carpenter, Copeland, and Yoke Lore, minimal indie pop act girlhouse took their first tour to New York City’s the Mercury Lounge for a sold-out night of both catharsis and joy alike.

Audiences were excited for the concert, chatting pre-show about their favorite songs and their stories of finding girlhouse, with one fan even thanking Sabrina Carpenter for being their intro.

Girlhouse, the epithet for singer-slash-actress Lauren Luiz, has created a strong reputation for deeply personal, relatable music discussing relationships, sex, love, living in LA, and mental health struggles. And on-stage, she gives off a similar feeling, chatting to fans between songs and telling the stories behind her lyrics.

The emotional connection between girlhouse and fans is apparent throughout the set, from inviting fans to dance to the upbeat “knuckle tattoo” or to rage along to the self-deprecating frustration of “paul blart mall cop.” The interludes between songs, where they tell the crowd about the man who FaceTimed his friends while they were still naked in bed as the inspiration for “facetime after sex,” feel like a giggly gossip session with close friends, and the forlorn cover of The Cranberries’ “Linger” feels like singing to a sad song in the car. 

The concert felt like excerpts from a diary. Offering peeks into their experiences, girlhouse provided specific glimpses from her life that although were unique to her, still felt entirely relatable. “cool guy” talked about the feeling of awe and idolization young people often feel towards older, “cool” men, while “pretty girl in LA” describes the frankly cutting experience of being told that she might be pretty elsewhere, she was “like a three” in Los Angeles.  

While some might shy away from exposing their experiences like this, girlhouse’s raw emotional take on bedroom indie pop is exactly what sets them apart. Though sonically similar to fellow indie artists like Phoebe Bridgers or Sarah Kinsley, girlhouse feels like the emotional successor to acts like Paramore or Alanis Morissette, with songs that describe sadness, rage, frustration, and insecurity through a lens that is all too familiar to the female-presenting and -identifying.

Closing out the night with “concussion,” a song Lauren refers to as the “song that changed [her] life,” it became clear amongst the unison singing of every lyric that while this may have been girlhouse’s first tour, it would be far from their last.

Article and Photo Gallery by Niamh Murphy