This month ANTIGRAVITY welcomes Elisa, who runs Alt Scene NOLA, a multiplatform outlet focused on the New Orleans underground scene.
Soup For Lunch: Lyla George Album Release Show
The weekend starting on Friday, January 16 was particularly slammed with concerts, but Lyla George served actual soup at the release show for her album Soup for Lunch at Gasa Gasa. The title came to her midway through putting the record together: Soup was an affordable, comforting, coming-of-age meal pulled from a can, symbolizing her transition from college into adulthood. The night marked the launch of her first tour, which runs February 7 through 12 with performances scheduled across Texas, Arizona, and California. In a city like New Orleans where shows blur together and exhaustion is worn like a badge, the gesture of serving soup felt like grounding nourishment that extended beyond novelty.
I met George back in 2024 at a show she performed at Saturn Bar. The conversation drifted toward creative blocks and that familiar impulse to give up, countered only by the quiet resolve that nothing hurts worse than disappointing yourself. To see her now—in full command of her energy and music, owning her career with clarity and confidence—felt like witnessing something come full circle.
The lineup for the album release show was a total knockout, curated by George from artists she has long admired. Butte opened the night, featuring Theresa Romero on lead vocals and guitar, Adam Keil on lead guitar, Avery Legendre on bass, and Shannon Paine-Jesam on drums. Butte is one of many local favorite bands to be signed to Strange Daisy Records. Tasche and the Psychedelic Roses, backed by Sinking City Records, followed with Lyla George closing the night as the headliner, unattached to any label and fully in her own lane.
Butte has been producing music since August 2018. Their soft vocals and weighty, jangling guitars found a point in me where sorrow met anger. With my eyes closed, the sound formed an emotional dew that clung to the walls of my mind’s warm and lonely room. Intimate and compelling, the pacing grew heavier as the band folded inward under the pressure they had created, Romero crying out at times, the energy bracing and releasing in emotional waves. The crowd would stop mid-sway to witness it, to feel the longing more deeply.
There was no posturing in the performance, no urgency to fill the silence. Butte allowed the space between notes to hold weight, trusting the room to meet them there. Each pause became a breath, and the lingering chords became a conversation with the audience, inviting them to feel rather than react. The dim lights softened the edges of the stage, casting shadows that moved with the music. It was the kind of set that asked for patience, rewarding it with a quiet catharsis that lingered long after the last chord faded, leaving the room suspended in a collective exhale, hearts echoing and thrumming with sorrow and longing.
Tasche and the Psychedelic Roses shifted the energy immediately, filling the stage with bandmates and electricity. Tasche de la Rocha was joined on stage by Slade Warnken on synth, Roy Brenc on bass, Dave Hammer on lead guitar, and Eric Heigle on drums. Next to them, as if floating on a cloud, sang three angels: Sabine McCalla, Sari Jordan, and Sofia Mock, layering in backup vocals. The group has been producing music together since 2016, honing a sound that is simultaneously precise and chaotic, each member feeding off of the others, the angels embracing one another on stage in chorus, to create something bigger than themselves.
The high voltage shocked the ground, and the crowd moved in response. Their surf doowop—loud, feral, and, yes, absolutely psychedelic—sent fast feet into motion, raised arms in the air, and left the crowd smiling and laughing. Watching the audience play felt unexpectedly soft, a happiness that stung like the end of a battery, overwhelming in its immediacy. It was a somatic joy, the kind that swells in the body before it ever reaches language, bringing tears without warning.
Lyla George, singer-songwriter and guitarist, has been building her career since 2021. Joining her on stage were Laura Fisher on keys and backing vocals, Adam Samolsky on bass, Carter Wilkinson on guitar, and Jonathan Arceneaux on drums. The band took the momentum and flame lit by Tasche and the Psychedelic Roses and threw lighter fluid on top. Lights flickered onstage and across the crowd, reflecting off walls and faces while the bass vibrated through the floor and into the bones of everyone present. The energy was magnetic, pulling people closer to the stage.
George undulated between soft, woeful romantic vocals and chaotic breakdowns that were commanding and full of plea. Fisher’s fingers crashed down frantically on her keys, while George scrambled over her pedal board, and Samolsky’s voice rose, reciting poetry like a declaration that hovered over the performance. The crowd danced, swayed, cheered, and gave their spirits freely until the very end. At one point, I looked to the side and noticed two older people whom I came to recognize as George’s parents, not because I knew them, but by the way they watched her so closely, their faces mirroring her own. It was a look of pride and awe that can only exist in the eyes of the people who made you.
If you’re in search of tenderness, the music scene in New Orleans holds it in the warm glow of purple neon lights. Come as a stranger, bring your hardships, and leave with a friend. The music scene is alive in this city, and its pulse is an intimate haywire. In venues like these, strangers lean in close, sharing the same air and vibrations, held together by music that asks for nothing but your attention. There is a softness here in the way that people listen, in the care struck in every chord, and in the subtle gestures between performers and crowd—the brief glances, nods, and smiles. It’s a place where grief, joy, longing, and release can coexist, and where moments of connection are fleeting yet unforgettable. At the end of the night, people walked away with soup in their stomachs and voices echoing in their ribcages. The music scene builds community not just on sound, but on shared presence, witness, and the quiet courage it takes to show up fully alive.
For more info, check out @lyla2flyla for Lyla George and @thebandbutte on Instagram; and tascheandthepsychedelicroses.com. For more on Alt Scene NOLA, check out @altscenenola on Instagram.
Top photo by Colby Baldwin: Left to right: Laura Fisher, Adam Samolsky, Jonathan Arceneaux, and Lyla George
