St. Lucia at The Observatory North Park

St. Lucia

St. Lucia graced San Diego with their presence this past Monday night during #NoChella week at The Observatory North Park.

The show was an all ages, speckled both young and old, but this also meant that I was standing next to a 4-year-old wearing giant headphones, presumably to stop the destruction of her innocent eardrums. No lie.

RAC (originally Remix Artist Collective) opened the show, leading the torch for all future Kidz Bop CDs to come. Formed by André Allen Anjos since 2007, RAC is a solo indie-electronic project, remixing and reinventing the wheel of various rock, electronica and dance songs. They played their most popular tracks, “Cheap Sunglasses”, “Let Go”, “Hollywood” and “Say My Name (Odesza Remix)” yet… the crowd was swaying in an appathetic trance. RAC’s stage presence was poppin’, but unfortunately, the connection with the audience was not. The crowd wasn’t into it —unless you were 16 and under. The 21+ members stayed back by the bars.

St. Lucia took the stage like veterans, oozing prolific energy and vibrance. They are based from Brooklyn, NY and are the solo project from Jean-Philip Grobler, a South African native. Accompanying him onstage were his bandmates and wife / keyboardist, Patti Beranek. “The Night Comes Again” came first, with “Closer Than This”, “Wait For Love, “We Got It Wrong”, and “All Eyes On You” following closely.

Jean-Philip took a moment to thank the crowd for being there. He said they had just played Coachella on the main stage and were overwhelmed by the audience, so it was nice to feel so intimate with a crowd, rather than a sea of faces in the distance, and began to play an unreleased track called, “Love Someone”. Everyone grooving in a dreamlike state to the inspiring and heavy bass tune, snapping their fingers to the beat.

After the second half of their set, the band waved goodbye and started to exit, but the crowd wasn’t having it. They slowly began to chant, “Don’t go, don’t go away” (a line from one of their popular songs, “We Got It Wrong”). After a solid minute of begging, the band reappeared and raised hell, playing crowd favorites: “Before The Dive”, “September” and “Elevate”.

If I could translate the night into digestible phrases, it would follow the crowd’s chant, in addition with: “Jean-Philip and Patti, you guys have the best couple outfits on.”