The lovers, the yearners and me: A review of sombr at Expo Hall 

The click of a slate operated by a stagehand electrifies the stage and strikes up a jaunty theme song as a disembodied voice introduces the houseband dressed in their concert blacks of muscle tees and unbuttoned shirts. Kicking off the “Late Nights and Young Romance Tour,” sombr transported the audience to the silver screen with the stage set for a late night talk show studio.  From the interview desk on stage right to the dressing room, vanity and all, across the way, a NYC skyline silhouette the stage. 

Sombr set the tone for the night opening with his lament “i wish i knew how to quit you.” Putting us in his present heartbreak, he put us through his trials of trying to move on from an unrequited devotion to a lover. He then moved from painting this external picture to the ever-so-familiar pleading with the universe to give this ending some sort of meaning with his song “savior,” followed by “we never dated.” 

The 20 year-old artist was unafraid on the stage, flinging his tall stature across the set with sharp dance moves,  groovily bobbing from side to side, even collapsing to the ground with his guitarist during “perfume.” He started to amp up the crowd more through “do i ever cross your mind,” challenging the too-cool LA audience to jump around with him. 

He slowed the crowd down with his lament of “in your arms,”  meditating on the addicting feeling of love and the withdrawal that comes with its sudden loss. He then played “caroline,” his first viral song that opened the door to his successful musical career. The audience felt the message of the crowd with couples embracing the same highs of love sombr sings about while  others were reminded of the lows that can come with loving. 

The young singer took a moment to thank the audience for getting him to where he is today. High demand for his sold-out tour had forced him and his team to upgrade any venues they could to accommodate larger crowds. 

The next segment of the show, aptly named, “Call Your Ex and Confront Them,” Sombr invited one lucky fan on stage to call their ex so he could tell them everything they did wrong. Unfortunately, lucky fan Shira was met with an automated voice message instead of a confrontational FaceTime call with her ex of eight months. 

His next block of songs whipped around from “dime” — anxiety surrounding the risk of caring and investing too much into a person — to “would’ve been you,” a broken record of thoughts of what could have been. 

The volume of the crowd erupted as sombr instructed the audience to “scream as if you’re ready to go to erewhon,” leading up to his final “hits section” act. He started his closing act with “undressed,” its sharp emotional climax resonating through the crowd. He paused singing for another talk show segment to make TikTtok inside jokes and give more thanks to the crowd.

 “Canal street,” “crushing” and “under the mat” were the emotional meat of his most popular songs. Amping up from the song selection from his latest album I Barely Know Her, the bass pulsed through the floor as the internet’s situationship anthem “back to friends” rang through a chorus of lovers and yearners in Expo Hall. Finally, sombr closed the show with his single “12 to 12.” His lyrics, “In a room full of people I look for you, would you avoid me or would you look for me too?” reverberated through a crowd of young lovers, the heartbroken and the healed. How many in that crowd were looking for the eyes of another they once shared these songs with? 

Sombr was recently under internet fire after a Tik-Tok user criticized the entirety of the show, calling it “one of the worst experiences of my life.” To the 25 year-old fan, the crowd was more akin to a middle school dance than a concert with how young the demographic was. Sombr was unfazed by her criticism of the audience being not much younger than himself, calling her annoyance of a crowd younger than him a “skill issue,” but he took larger issue with her calling him “cringe.” He rebuttaled, “I make jokes for five minutes of the concert and the rest is music…Like, live a little, enjoy life.” 

At his Los Angeles show, the audience had an array of ages from grown adults to parents chaperoning their teenage children. The array of people in the audience was an eminent display of the universal feelings that sombr was singing about. Drawing on the thrill of loving someone too much, the heartbreak of mourning what could have been and the present and residual anxiety of intimate unlabeled relationships that now only exist in retrospect. These are all the emotional hurdles that come with relationships. The audience members who hear these songs, with an ear attuned to relationships, are transported back to the moments of vulnerability that weather the way they walk into new love. The young romantics hear the catchy beat and new yet ever-so-familiar thought-like lyrics and sing along like any other top-40 hit but will one day return to the music of their teenage years and the weight of his words will resonate in their ears and their chest. 

Sombr’s pit stop in LA brought the yearners together to sing out their heartbreak and find comfort in the shared outline of their memories. Ending his last song with the lyrics, “Tell me is our story through? Or do our hearts still beat in tune?” everyone shuffled out onto the streets of Los Angeles with sombr’s overarching question: Do we ever get over anything?