The British singer-songwriter stopped in Hollywood on June 29
Holly Humberstone sure knows how to kick the Monday blues.
The British singer-songwriter — who released her sophomore album on the same April day as her Coachella performance — has been making her way around the States this June. Beginning in Boston, Humberstone took the Cruel World North American tour to Governor’s Ball and Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival before a final stretch of shows along the West Coast in Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“For a Monday, you guys are a great vibe,” she told The Fonda crowd.
Humberstone devoted much of the set to her latest album Cruel World, appropriately kicking off the night with album opener “So It Starts…” and falling into “Make It All Better.” The latter is a love song, but on this night felt like a promise to the crowd that, no matter what was happening outside of The Fonda walls, all was good for the next 75 minutes.
The mostly Gen-Z crowd upheld their end of the bargain by dancing and singing along, likely inspired by the 26-year-old’s own stage presence. Dressed in head-to-toe white — a foil to the album’s neo-goth aesthetics — Humberstone danced too when not commanding a rotating lineup of guitars.
She continued to cement an intimacy throughout the evening — powered by strong vocals that would shift to soft, breathy confessions as needed (cursive singers wish they sounded this good) — by pouring admissions into the mic like “The house is full but I’m alone” (“The Walls Are Way Too Thin”) and “The web that I’m tangled in just isn’t built for two” (“Dive”). While strumming an acoustic guitar, she sang, “We’ll get drunk and I’ll give you my body,” her accent peeking through at the lyric’s end.
Humberstone, after all, has cut her touring chops by opening for pop’s modern behemoths (Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, soon Gracie Abrams). She clearly knows having a fun night comes best inspired by love songs and being vulnerable — and how to steer the audience back to safety when the pit verges into a danger zone. Just easing into “Red Chevy”, Humberstone paused the show to be sure a fan was alright and then restarted the song (to the delight many).
Later, Humberstone returned for the encore and got especially real: “We are growing up in the scariest of time… there’s no rulebook about how to be an adult.” But it wasn’t a warning, so much as a promise that her music can be a balm through it all, as certified by her next song “Lucy,” a track dedicated to her younger sister. “Behind every rain cloud, there is a promise that flowers will grow,” she sings.
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By the end of the night, Humberstone proved she is on her way to be an artist in full bloom.
Credit: Silken Weinberg
See the full set list below.
So It Starts…
Make It All Better
To Love Somebody
The Walls Are Way Too Thin
Overkill
Cruel World
Blue Dream
Kissing in Swimming Pools
Die Happy
Paint My Bedroom Black
Down Swinging
Beauty Pageant
White Noise
Falling Asleep at the Wheel
Red Chevy
Drunk Dialing
Dive
Lucy
Scarlett