Eliza McLamb Tells a Good Story at the Voodoo Room with Lily Seabird
Last Monday night, Eliza McLamb brought the Good Story tour to Voodoo Room at the House of Blues San Diego. McLamb is an indie rock artist from North Carolina. She released her sophomore album, Good Story, in October of 2025. The album explores the way we write narratives for ourselves and use them to anchor us, and how that can soothe yet also trap you. It’s a touching examination of one’s inner world, and tells a story that ends in growth and ultimately freedom. She’s worked with a number of impressive other artists such as Sarah Tudzin of the Illuminati Hotties and Sarah Goldstone, keyboardist for boygenius and Lucy Dacus. Fans in line outside were buzzing with excitement as they mingled and made new friends, sharing the songs they were most excited to hear.
Opening the show was indie rock musician Lily Seabird. Her and her band are approaching the end of a long tour, and just this month released a new album, Trash Mountain. The folk rock album is dedicated to and named after the place she feels most connected to, a collective creative hub in Burlington that sits on an old landfill. Seabird has a confident stage presence and a clear comfortable chemistry exists between the band. The emotion in Seabirds’ voice and delivery was hard hitting and mesmerizing. They played as if they were one, Seabird would look right at the guitarist as they lose themselves in the song and the sound. They played an unreleased song and teased a new release coming soon, receiving cheers from the crowd. Seabirds’ set was electric and left the audience warmed up and ready for the main act of the night.
The front row shuffled in excitedly as McLamb approached the mic and keyboard set up at the front of the stage. It’s easy to see the way her striking lyricism and the hook in her melodies effects each fan in the room. The setlist takes you through feelings of self-criticism, growing up, and the addictive quality of suffering. The sounds and melodies reflect the feelings in the words, as she screams endlessly during Suffering, and the beautiful calm chaos in the outro of Masoleum. The just slightly off drum beats and piano creates an echoing feeling of being inside the song, inside a masoleum, as it builds like its closing in on you.
She sat on the floor of the stage for one of the softer songs off the new record, Girls I Know, introducing it as a song about how hard it is to be a person. The emotion in the song triples in the live performance, as you can hear the raw feeling in her voice as she sings about doing the mundane things, “I do another boring thing, I brush my teeth I clean the sink.”
The end of the set showcased a few older songs, including Salt Circle from her first EP. The song recounts moments with a close friend from childhood. The lyrics describe it cinematically and create a warm and comforting image. The verse brings you into the memory. Pairs of friends glanced each others’ way, placing heads on shoulders while she sang, “when we take on new bodies I will scour the earth to find you again.”
McLamb took the audience through a beautiful story of growing up, understanding yourself, and working to deconstruct some stories we hold onto too tightly. Closing with her popular single, Mythologize Me, a cathartic song riddled with sarcasm and poignant lyrics about the incomplete and idealistic images men project onto women. The emotional release was felt throughout the room at the close of a moving, rocking show at the Voodoo Room.
