Photos and review by NOTES FROM VIVACE
LOS ANGELES – Jay Som (moniker for Melina Duterte) played The Roxy to an adoring crowd on a Sunday night. Per Duterte, this was her first Los Angeles show since 2019 when she played the Echoplex. The band is currently on a tour that started off in Europe and is now crossing the United States in support of her first album release in six years, “Belong.”
The band played seven songs off the 11-track album, starting it off with “Float,” a dream pop tune that built to a final crescendo. “What You Need” had the band jamming. You could tell they were having fun with the song as the band members broke out in smiles and then the crowd sensing the enjoyment cheered loudly at the end. “Appointments” was a tune of quiet reflections.
“Casino Stars” was a sweet bedtime charmer while “D.H.” rocked the house. Duterte ended the night with a trio of songs from prior albums. “Superbike” got some of the loudest cheers from a crowd that was packed to the edges of the venue. That song as well as the jazz tune “Tenderness” were from the 2019 release Anak Ko.
Duterte ended the set with a comment about touring. She mentioned that she was “hella sleepy” as the band had driven down from San Francisco and she had only gotten a couple hours of sleep. She asked what time it was as the band started to play her 2017 release “The Bus Song.” Someone in the audience responded with an exact time, “9:41 p.m.” Perhaps the set was scheduled to end at 9:55 p.m., because as she was strumming the opening instrumentals of the song, she asked the audience, “What if I just did this for ten minutes?”
The band may have been tired, but the crowd gave them an energy boost by singing along. When the song ended, she gave the audience a jazz hands goodbye wave as The Roxy curtains came down.
The Roxy did have a fun afterparty entertainment for the crowd. The venue still had their Halloween spider dangling from the ceiling and as the crowd headed to the exits or stood in line at the merch table, the spider decided it was time to do some descending and ascending down its thread.
Opening up the night was Los Angeles-based Fashion Club (moniker for Pascal Stevenson). The dark synth set was played with no lights other than five small spotlights that danced around the stage as well as two table lamps that flickered on and off. As each song ended, the spotlights switched from white to blue to red. Her tunes were filled with the search for meaning in life. The song “Confusion” explored those topics with the lyrics, “I make up a fantasy to get myself through the day, awake.”
Not all was overly somber. With a hard cutoff of 8:30 p.m., Stevenson mentioned that she had 2 or 3 songs left depending on the time. The first song ended unexpectedly due to an accidental press of a synth button. She amusingly played it off by mentioning it was on purpose and then told the audience, “I’m playing two and a half songs.”
Setlist: Float, What You Need, Appointments, Past Lives, Drop A, Casino Stars, D.H., Want It All, Superbike (2019), Tenderness (2019), The Bus Song (2017).
