Half-English, half-Chinese singer-songwriter Liang Lawrence was taught to play the piano and violin from a young age. Nowadays, however, she prefers to play the guitar, which she brought onto the stage with her in Amsterdam. On the 27th of September, Lawrence played her first-ever headline show in mainland Europe in Paradiso’s upstairs room as part of ‘It’s a Funny Tour’.
While not sold out, fans steadily headed inside when the doors to the venue opened at 19:00. Only half an hour later, Lawrence and her band members – guitarist Coby Tom and drummer Joey Walker – took to the stage. The three of them opened the set with ‘Kiss My Apocalypse’ and ‘Use Me’ before Lawrence took a moment to speak to the audience. She stated how she was “really scared” for this first headline show in Amsterdam, “but [feels] a little bit better now”. She also spoke about her latest EP, It’s a Funny Thing, on which the song ‘Lila’ can be found. Lawrence wrote this about a mental illness that one has to battle all the time. She continued with ‘Backseat’ and then grabbed her guitar for the next couple of songs, the first of which was ‘unposted letters’.
While Lawrence had originally planned to play more shows, she had to cancel quite a few, as touring is so expensive nowadays. Fortunately for her fans, she still managed to play in Amsterdam, which they were all obviously grateful for. All the words were sung along, which Lawrence made a note of after playing ‘eulogy’. She continued with ‘If It Isn’t Killing Me’, written about the periods one experiences where one engages in bad habits. Lawrence herself struggled with disordered eating and noticed how she was only able to do things that made this worse. This made for a very beautiful moment, as the entire room was speechless as she sang. Lawrence ended the, in her own words, “emotional” part of the set with ‘Thoughtless’, before moving on to a cover of Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Taste’. From that song onwards, Lawrence told the audience to “please enjoy and have fun”.
The tenth song on tonight’s setlist was ‘Out Loud’, a love song everyone could dance to. For ‘the pilot’, Lawrence left her guitar behind so she could freely move around the stage again. She had to grab it again, however, to play the very sappy ‘Goldmine’. During this song, which she wrote about her boyfriend, her fans held up little pieces of orange paper in front of their flashlights to light up the entire room. This made Lawrence visibly excited, and she thanked the audience multiple times. Two fans in the front row had been the ones to organise this. They had also given Lawrence a stuffed Miffy before the show that was sitting on stage with her. Lawrence ended her set with ‘(not) a love song’ and ‘A Day Off In Margaritaville’, a song that makes Lawrence “feel like Lightning McQueen” from Cars. In between these final two songs, Lawrence noticed a fan asking if she could play ‘If Only’. While she did not have time to do so tonight, she promised them she would the next time she made it to Amsterdam. Hopefully, that will be sooner rather than later!
