Getting Through the Worst of It with Laura Elliot
Article and photos by Mia Thompson
When Laura Elliot’s Monday night Schubas set began, she was absent from the stage. June 10 marked the third stop on her Car Sick tour, and the Chicago crowd was eager to celebrate Elliot’s new Car Sick EP, released in March of this year.
As the first chords were struck by her band — Jackson August on guitar, Cisco Swank on keyboard and bass, and Alex Yoo on drums — Elliot emerged from the crowd. Her entrance was theatrical and sweet, setting the tone for night with no barriers between artist and audience.
Elliot’s set was personal and intimate; between songs she chatted casually with the crowd about her nerves and the tuning of her guitar. At one point, Swank was given a moment to tell a “Your Mom” joke that involved a rather impressive British accent. For one of her songs, Elliot performed the entire thing sitting down, at eye level with the audience. Despite the stage lights and spitting fog machine, the set had the feel of a house show thrown by good friends.
Full of introspection, remorse, and poetic longing, Elliot’s indie rock tracks told stories about unrequited love and desperation. The atmospheric instrumentals of her band sent each song spiraling into the stratosphere, building and crashing on every chorus. She opened with “Blue,” a lead single from her 2022 studio album People Pleaser. The painful ballad kicked the set off on a note of angry desire.
Ellliot’s performance was atmospheric and romantic, her voice soaring sweetly over static and guitar in songs like “God Complex'' (People Pleaser), which tells the story of a relationship burdened with addiction and narcissism. This sort of painful love was a focus for Elliot’s set, each of her songs painfully honest. She introduced “Fold” (Car Sick) which she performed without the accompaniment of her band, as a different sort of love song, saying “this one is my, you know, fucked up one.”
Elliot and her band played unreleased music as well, something she had hinted at on her Instagram ahead of the tour.
But perhaps the most emotional moment of the night was when Elliot performed a heart wrenchingly triumphant cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow.” As phone flashlights waved and people called out the familiar lyrics, it felt like Elliot was right back in and among the crowd again.
Elliot closed the show with “Grass Stains,” a single released in 2020 and seemed to be both questioning and reassuring her listeners (and herself) as she called out the final lines of the song: “Is life holdin' me down or am I just around? Through the worst of it. Through the worst of it.”
Elliot talks about love, loss, and life unflinchingly; through the worst of it all.
You can listen to Laura Elliot’s new EP, Car Sick here and check out the rest of her music on all streaming platforms!