Julia Jacklin has been touring the songs from her fantastic debut record for almost two years, and Tuesday night at The Echo marked the final show of that album cycle.
Don’t Let The Kids Win helped Jacklin become a full-time musician, as she told me in an April interview, and as she finished her show Tuesday night, she said it changed her life “in the best ways possible.” It was clear that her music had a life-changing effect on many of the people in the crowd, who stood in awe of her talents as she played one gut-wrenching song after another.
It was cool to see the crowd so into the song “Cold Caller” — the B-side from the “Eastwick” single she released earlier this year. It’s a song she said was written for her sister, and it’s quite an ode.
Prior to playing “L.A. Dream”, Jacklin recounted playing the song the night before in San Francisco and the man the song was about was in the crowd with his parents and his new girlfriend, and she dedicated the song to him, realizing halfway through performing, “Wow, these are some intense lyrics.” In our interview earlier this year, Jacklin told me that the song was about a guy in SF but “SF Dream” didn’t have the same ring to it. She talked about liking L.A. and specifically Echo Park, where her last show happened to be.
Her songs are so intimate and many of them quiet. I was standing to the right side of the stage and every now and then, I could hear the whirring noise of the loud flushes from the ladies restroom.
Jacklin closed out her set with the strong one-two combination of “Pool Party” and the title track from her debut record, “Don’t Let The Kids Win”. I remember first seeing Jacklin open for Julien Baker last year, and remembering “Pool Party” as sounding like a bit more uptempo sounding version of Angel Olsen’s classic “Unfucktheworld”. And “Don’t Let The Kids Win” has a certain Jenny Lewis from Rabbit Fur Coat era quality to it, and those two songs had me hooked on her music for good.
“I’m wearing the same skirt that’s on the album cover,” Jacklin said before finishing her set. She later added that she almost felt like she should have a ceremonial burning of the skirt in the middle of the road after the show, but thought, “That’s probably illegal, right?”
Jacklin returned to the stage for an encore, as a number of people in the crowd shouted “Hay Plain!”
“That’s the song we’re gonna play!” Jacklin smiled, adding that when she introduced the song the night before in SF, it didn’t get nearly the same response. It’s no surprise that LA kids are on top of things a bit more, and no wonder that Julia Jacklin is so fond of Echo Park — they’re quite fond of her as well.
Photos by Stephanie Varela Rheingold
Interview: Julia Jacklin on L.A., becoming a full-time musician, In N Out Burger
