Maude Latour Shines at Cambridge’s Sonia
All images taken by writer Jess Ferguson
Not to toot my own horn, but I predicted that indie pop singer-songwriter Maude Latour was on the verge of hitting a more mainstream audience last year, and she seems to be doing just that. The 22-year-old Columbia University senior has been spending her weekends between classes touring cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle. She made stops on April 15 and 16 in Cambridge at Sonia, a general admission venue owned by The Middle East—and she did not disappoint.
The show kicked off with Raffaella, a pop singer and songwriter known for songs like “Sororicide,” “Bruce Willis,” and “NASA’s Fake.” Despite never having heard of her prior to the show, I was thoroughly impressed at how she commanded the stage and started off the night with a bang. Lyrics like “I bought a coffee but my name’s spelt wrong / I’m sick of listening to my favorite song / I’m losing followers and gaining weight / How much can I take?” from “NASA’s Fake” certainly resonated with the predominantly teenage and 20-something audience who swayed and bopped along to her songs. Her blunt, dry sense of humor shined through between each song, where she would throw out one-liners like “I wrote this song when I was depressed” or “when I was brunette,” in addition to anecdotes like “I wrote this song when I was mad at a friend, and instead of talking to her, I let it grow into resentment. It’s been nine months.” Most importantly, her voice was beautifully sweet, and the only instrumental accompaniment was her guitarist Sara, which allowed her voice to shine through. When I got home, I liked all of her songs on Spotify—but check out “NASA’s Fake,” “BLONDE,” and “Balaclava” in particular.
The only appropriate word to describe Latour’s entrance onstage is firecracker. She brought on high energy, tangible passion, and contagious happiness from the moment she ran onto to stage to the moment she ran off. Her set kicked off with one of my favorites, “Furniture,” about seeing your ex at a party following a messy breakup, as the audience screamed along to lyrics like “And damn, I really hate your guts / I hate all your friends / And I miss you so much / But I blocked all your texts.”
Maude’s next song was dedicated to her and the crowd’s best friends for her 2021 track “Walk Backwards,” which is one of a couple songs dedicated to friendships that blur the line between friends and lovers. Maude revealed in a TikTok that “every person I’ve dated has been jealous of [the] love” she has between her and her best friend, Morgan. The song’s a refreshing take amid a music scene oversaturated with romantic love songs.
Maude asked who had been there since the beginning of her music career, which received lots of screams back. She used this as a segue to the older songs off her 2019 Starsick EP, performing some of the songs that got it started for her, like “Superfruit,” “Plans,” “Lovesick,” and “Shoot and Run.” The songs predominantly deal with love: in “Plans,” she sings “Let me cancel all of my plans to be alone with you,” and in “Starsick,” a song she wrote in high school, she sings “We’ll have our own revolution, baby / I could rewrite the constitution, baby.”
But she also sang newer songs like “Headphones” and “Lola,” which were both released within the past few weeks. Despite the songs being recent releases, the audience yelled out every lyric with as much fervor as Latour did. She revealed in a TikTok that “Headphones” is about “falling in love with the world inside your head,” evident in lyrics like “These dreams I have are so insane / I try to tell you, but I can’t / You wouldn’t even get it, even if I said it.” The song came after Maude declared she was “sick of love songs,” according to NPR, and took a new direction on the world of dreams. “Lola” was released on April 8 and is dedicated to protecting the planet and your friends — specifically, her best friend Lola, who was in attendance at the show. Like with “Walk Backwards,” Latour toes the line between platonic and romantic love: in the track, she reveals “Yeah, I really think I love you, Lola.” Latour’s energy was palpable, as she grinned from ear to ear with every song, especially this one, which she said was one of her “most special” projects thus far. Everyone in the audience couldn’t help but smile back as they sang every lyric without missing a beat while bopping their heads along to the rock-infused track.
One of the attributes of such a small venue like Sonia, which has a 350-person capacity, is its intimacy, allowing the audience and the artist to connect on a deeper level. Every spot is good with a room of that size, and even if someone in the back row yelled something out, everyone would probably be able to hear. Both the personal energy and the high visibility allowed for a really enjoyable experience.
While Latour interacted in a traditional way by trying on a strawberry crochet hat a fan made, grabbing everyone in the front rows’ hands, and asking how everyone was doing, her interaction extended beyond the norms of most shows. About halfway through the set, she literally took a breather by instructing the room to take in three deep breaths together in complete silence — other than the hand dryer in the bathroom that the crowd laughed about hearing. Energy, spirituality, and philosophy are common trends in both Maude’s studies at Columbia and her music, so it only makes sense that she would want to share a moment like that with her fans.
A frequent occurrence in Maude’s shows is playing unreleased music: she did so before “Lola” was released, and in Cambridge, she played “Trees,” a dreamy track dedicated to the impact a love has had on her life. She admits in the chorus, “And suddenly the trees are breathing like my lungs are too / And it feels surreal that I’m forever changed by you.” Latour is one to tease songs on social media and onstage before officially releasing it, so she’ll likely drop it to the public within the coming weeks.
After singing of heartache in “Strangers Forever,” epiphanies in “Ride My Bike,” and the fear of love in “Shoot and Run,” she reached her penultimate song, “Block Your Number,” a sure crowd pleaser. The song deals with the fallout of a breakup, when there’s just one thing left to do: block their phone number. Maude again engaged with the audience in this song, having everyone squat to the ground in the pre-chorus and then jump up in unison as she sang “Now you’re leaning against the brick wall / With your backpack on, baby” in the chorus. The performance was probably my favorite of the night, and the show could have ended there — but it didn’t.
After Maude exited the stage, the crowd yelled for “encore” until a few minutes later, when her drummer and guitarist came back onstage, and Maude ran out for “one more” — “One More Weekend,” that is. The song follows the trajectory of a relationship through its demise, but Maude still doesn’t want the love to end and chases the last moments she can: “Tell me that you miss me even if you won’t.” I could feel the floorboards vibrating under my feet as hundreds of people jumped around in unison, savoring the last moments of the set. One of the things I was continuously impressed about during the show was Maude’s live vocals: even though she was running back and forth across the stage, dancing, and jumping, her voice still sounded as strong as the recorded tracks, making her a great live act.
Although Maude’s tour concludes next weekend with shows in Atlanta and Charlotte and her college career concludes in a few weeks, this is just the start of her stardom. We can likely expect more releases, more TikTok teasers, and more musings on love and loss pretty soon from Latour. Check out her Spotify, TikTok, and Instagram for more.