Bloom and Grow: Luna Li enthralls all at Rickshaw Stop

Friday, October 14 at Rickshaw Stop saw a radiant, arresting performance by the rising Asian Canadian indie sweetheart Luna Li, accompanied by the playfully moody up-and-coming Los Angeles project zzzahara. Embarking on the final leg of their US tour, the headlining band had departed from their role as support for Wolf Alice to play a handful shows with the Filipinx-American creative, a triumphant partnership between female and nonbinary children of the Asian diaspora that indubitably rocked the west coast.

Though doors were set at 7 PM, it wasn’t until 8 o’clock that Rickshaw Stop’s purple painted vault door of an entrance creaked open to welcome the incoming tide of fans. Grumbling to themselves about the extended wait, the audience filed into the cozy venue, where they would be entertained by a DJ from the event’s host: Bay Area indie promoter agency Popscene. Hypnotic, anachronistic visuals curated from 60s dance routines and MTV shorts kept the peace during the agonizing hour before support came on. The painted faces of Twiggy and Bowie flickered across the billowing white projector screen; the vocals of SZA, Local Natives, and other musicians of our modern age filled the empty minutes. As the hour eclipsed 9 o’clock, the background music finally began its slow fade into oblivion, marked by the opening chords of girl in red’s lesbian anthem “we fell in love in october.” It was a fitting start to the opening set, a collection of songs that were mournful, provokative, and oh-so-conspicuously queer.

Zzzahara entered stage right clad in their typical concert wear, a black hoodie and dark carpenter jeans. The artist is still growing accustomed to their newfound place in the spotlight—after gaining recognition as the lead guitarist for Filipino-American post-punk musician Eyedress, they have now spread their wings and founded their own fledgling solo project. During a summer set with local bands Shutups and Small Crush at Oakland’s Starline Social Club, the singer admitted that it was only the band’s second show together, and just a handful of months have passed since that night. But zzzahara had clearly grown more comfortable in this forefrontal role, engaging in telling banter with the audience that revealed the inspiration behind their songs. Despite the learned ease that graced their performance, there was a noticeable change in the singer’s demeanor halfway through the set when they picked up their electric guitar. Instrumentalist and instrument had been united once more—now the true fun began.

Though zzzahara’s appearance was withdrawn—their face partially obscured by the hood of their sweatshirt, granting them an air of mystique—their lyricism is anything but reserved. Before commencing with “cupids out tonight,” they admitted that the song was about the experience of having feelings for a straight girl; following that track came “they don’t know,” a song punctuated by themes of yearning and anxiety, nagging emotions that fought for prevalence as the artist sang about their fear of being discovered and judged for their sexuality. Arriving at their latest release, “julia,” the artist paused to give some backstory on the song. They recounted a high school battle of the bands, when they had an ill-fated crush on a rival musician who was also participating in the showdown. When their starcrossed nemesis, Julia, wrote a diss track about zzzahara, the artist responded by concocting a diss track of their own. “Julia I want you//wanted you to stay away,” zzzahara crooned into the mic. Apparently, at the time of the song’s original performance, Julia herself was not amused. “She stormed offstage two minutes in!” zzzahara exclaimed. “At least I stayed to listen to her diss track about me.” Now, years down the line, Julia will maintain notoriety as an installment in the artist’s debut LP. In commenting on the album, which is set to be released on October 21, zzzahara remarked that it had recently received a scalding review by Europe’s Loud and Quiet Magazine. The audience, by now fully endeared to the artist, was quick to decry this harsh assessment with supportive cheers. After giving a shoutout to each of their band members, the artist closed out their set with “get out of la,” a song about gentrification in the artist’s home city of Los Angeles. Having barely broken half an hour, the band began to disassemble their gear—but midway through grabbing equipment, zzzahara paused in realization and turned back to tap the microphone. Finding it still responsive, they leaned in for their final address to the audience: “Oh yeah I never introduced myself,” they laughed. “I’m zzzahara.” They were met by another round of cheers as they exited the stage and disappeared into the realms beyond.

Following this short-but-sweet performance, the DJ resumed with filler music, once again transforming the venue into a composite movie theater/waiting room. Audience members chattered among themselves, remarking at the droning volume of the subwoofers and settling in before the headliner. When the first notes of “Loving is Easy” by Rex Orange County began to play, however, indignant whoops filled the room. With the artist having been charged with six counts of sexual assault this week, the trial by public opinion was swift. Reading the room, the DJ quickly switched gears to “Lost” by unanimously beloved musical icon Frank Ocean without so much as a crossfade. The audience quieted, satisfied with having booed the abuser off of the airwaves.

What to say about Luna Li?

What not to say? They were breathtaking, ethereal, benevolent. The band emerged under the cover of darkness, taking their positions as blue stage lights swiveled around to meet them. The playful, bouncing synth notes of “Alone But Not Lonely” filled the air, and lead singer Hannah Bussiere Kim skipped into the spotlight, smiling all the way. With her bandmates behind her, close friends who have accompanied her from their hometown of Toronto through eight years of shows, she was in her element, shining like star stuff and brilliant as the moon.

The artist has played much bigger stages than Rickshaw Stop before, though primarily as an opener rather than a headliner. For her first “real” tour, her band opened for Michelle Zauner’s project Japanese Breakfast across North America, building their brand as the accompaniment to this stellar musician. Because of their shared experiences as mixed-race musicians, the tour was especially impactful for Hannah. “Touring with Japanese Breakfast was so, so meaningful to me,” she said. “I looked up to Michelle for a long time before that—she was one of the very first people I felt represented by and she’s also half-Korean, same as me. It was a total dream come true to play with them.” As the opening act to Japanese Breakfast, Luna Li is seemingly situated next in line to the existing dynasty of Asian women in indie music: Karen O shattered boundaries as the mixed-race lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and greatly inspired Michelle Zauner in the early days of her musicianship. Then, on Japanese Breakfast’s first national tour, they opened for Mitski, forging a connection between two women who would change the face of the 2010s indie scene. Sasami, Jay Som, Beabadoobee, Luna Li, and countless others have since entered these ranks, collaborating among one another in order to open more doors to the music industry and support this burgeoning community. Now that she has made a name for herself, Hannah has the chance to further the work of these women, intentionally creating opportunities for female and nonbinary people of color in music. All of the directors of her music videos have been women; everyone on the tour crew is female or nonbinary. In an industry notoriously pervaded by whiteness and misogyny, the inclusion of these demographics is unprecedented—making this kind of outreach all the more vital.

Though the singer cherished her time on tour with Japanese Breakfast, she admitted that there is something unique about headlining a show. “It’s so special to have a group of people come who are there to hear my music and who sing with me,” Hannah said. “It’s really a mindblowing feeling.” And come in numbers they did; the show sold out with weeks to go before the event, and the audience welcomed Luna Li with open arms, hanging on her every word. In the penultimate song of the set, “Afterglow,” the singer extended the mic to the crowd, asking who among those in the front row knew the lyrics to the second verse. One fan accepted the mic, then quickly passed it to another. Eyes aglow in amazement, the pink-haired, butterfly-hairclipped listener made their way through the lines before ecstatically returning the microphone to Hannah.

Along with being an incredibly talented singer whose vocals captivated the crowd, Hannah is a brilliant instrumentalist and performer. Halfway through the set, the band changed courses to spotlight some of the instrumental jams that helped them gain recognition over the pandemic. It then became clear that the artist did not need her voice in order to put on a show; sliding her fingers up and down the fretboard, she made her guitar sing, emitting striking notes that traversed different scales, the playful arpeggios showcasing Hannah’s technical prowess. For “Misery Moon,” she perched behind a harp that had been positioned at stage right, gently plucking its strings while simultaneously singing along. Finally, for “Lonely/Lovely,” she set a guitar loop before taking up the violin, the instrument on which she is classically trained. She asked the audience to close their eyes, treating the song as a meditation on presence and the power of music. “You are exactly where you need to be,” she told the crowd, and began to play.

Another standout element of Hannah’s performance was her clothing. Put colloquially, this woman could serve a fit. She began the show wearing sheer black sprinkle tights that had been cut and refashioned into a shirt, white biker shorts with a garter attachment, and a black thong on top. Her max hardware platform Doc Marten boots added a few inches to her height as she bounded and danced across the stage. Electric fans positioned at centerstage caused the ribbon tied around her left wrist to flutter delicately and during “Silver into Rain,” when the lights turned purple and orange to reflect the color scheme of the album art, her earrings glimmered and sparkled like dew drops swinging at her cheeks. Later, she disappeared off stage for a weighted moment. The audience was frozen on their toes, wondering what it could mean. A premature encore? Or a costume change? The latter suspicion was confirmed when the singer reemerged dressed in a baby blue gown and resumed her performance.

My first thought in response to this switch referred back to the theme of her 2022 debut album, Duality, released early this year. The album deals with the complexities of being a queer, mixed-race multi-instrumentalist, always compelled to occupy spaces in-between. Rather than allowing herself to be marginalized or relegated to the background, Hannah advocates for the nuances found in contradiction and the beauty that those differences can yield. She has created a composite type of music, arranging indie songs with classical elements and taking an overdrive pedal to bedroom pop. Atop looped instrumentals and complex track layers that harness the technological potential of production, she spins metaphors about nature, gardens and flowers. Her music embodies hybridity—hence, from an audience perspective, the costume change stayed consistent with this ideology. 

As it turned out, there was a different explanation behind the switch. After the show, Hannah recounted how she and the tour photographer Evie had spent the day exploring the thrift stores of San Francisco, taking a rare moment to enjoy their most recent destination amid the exhausting grind of the tour. During their mini adventure, the pair lingered at Missing Audrey Vintage and struck up a conversation with the two women working there. They chatted while trying on dresses in the store, and eventually offered the women guest list spots for that evening’s show. Both left without buying anything, but were surprised when their guests arrived at the venue. “We got to the show and they DMed me and said ‘we’re going to bring one of the dresses as a gift,’” Hannah told me. “I decided to swap my fit plan and wear the dress instead.” This kind gesture became a spectacle of its own in the show, a testament to twoness reifying the album’s theme. 

The night ended on “Cherry Pit,” a single off of Luna Li’s 2021 EP Flower (In Full Bloom) that was revamped and re-released in its final form on Duality. It began with a drum roll and energetic guitar shred, bolstering the energy in the room before sinking into the familiar guitar riff. Fingers locked into bar chord position, the singer allowed her hands to travel up the frets for the pre-chorus, filling out the soundscape before a cascade of vocals washed over the crowd, completing the arc. The mic settings were so crisp you could hear every breath, and each note of the harmonies was expertly locked in. The dream team proceeded through the verses, finishing out the song with another instrumental break accompanied by a glorious shred. As the lights went down, the whole band stepped to the front of the stage and took a bow arm-in-arm before making their exit.

Luna Li’s US tour will end in a few days with final shows in Anaheim and Los Angeles before the crew departs to play a handful of major cities in Europe, including the Pitchfork festivals in Paris and Berlin. The band hopes to remain in Europe for a while after playing these dates, in order to enjoy the full range of experiences their favorite cities have to offer once they are free from the tight schedule and expectations of the tour. It will be a chance for Hannah to relish the world post-pandemic, with her music now having carried her from the close quarters of her bedroom all the way across oceans and continents. This once unfathomable dream has become reality for Luna Li; now it’s time to enjoy the afterglow. 

Article by Sophia Shen

Photos by Tabata Pulido