“You’re going to Laufey with the LA Phil!”

My brother and my parents, who were on the phone, saw how excited I was when I finally got tickets to see this up-and-coming performer.

Laufey (pronounced LAY-vay) is a classically trained Icelandic-Chinese jazz and pop singer and musician based in the US. Her first EP “Typical of Me” was released in 2021. Since then, she has released two albums and a deluxe album, performed at major festivals like Lollapalooza, and won the 2023 Grammy award for “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album” for her 2023 album “Bewitched.”

When I arrived at the Hollywood Bowl with my brother at 6:30 p.m., I forgot how beautiful it was since the last time I was there was back in 2016 for The Cure. The show was held in a massive outdoor amphitheater, which can hold nearly 18,000 people, according to the Hollywood Bowl.

My brother and I quickly hopped into the merch line because the main merch booth was starting to wrap around the amphitheater. We decided to go to the farthest one out of the three different merch booths because it was much shorter than the others. When we returned to our seats after spending nearly $150, it was already 8 p.m., and the concert was starting very soon.

Once the concert started, the venue erupted with applause and cheers as Laufey walked out in a beautiful black dress. The concert was split into two sections with an intermission. The first half resembles how her traditional concerts looked like on her 2023 tour “The Bewitched Tour,” with her and a handful of people on stage with her.

Laufey started her show with a song off her first album “Everything I Know About Love” called “Above the Chinese Restaurant.” The impactful song is about a collection of experiences from Laufey’s life living in Chinatown, and how important it is to appreciate everything you have, including your heritage.

Laufey would go on to perform other songs such as “Street By Street,” “Dear Soulmate,” and “Second Best.”

She ended the first half of the show with a special appearance from her classically trained violinist sister Junia (pronounced like Yunia) on the song “Best Friend” and ended the first half of the show with the heart-wrenching song “Letter to My 13 Year Old Self,” which talks about what she would say to her 13-year-old self, and how important it is to never stop chasing your dreams.

After the song, she said, “Thank you for making my dreams come true!” and we went straight to intermission.

After intermission, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra was all set. Laufey came out in a stunning pink dress and started singing “Dreamer,” the opening track to her second album, “Bewitched.”

Later, she went to perform her song “Falling Behind," about how everyone is already falling in love and getting married, and she is still searching for that someone. Before she started singing the song, she told a story about her experience with love compared with her friends. She said that one of her friends said to her, “I met my soulmate! " and she followed it with, “Really? On Tinder?”

Laufey would go from playing guitar to playing piano, not just singing throughout the entire show, and would play some of my favorite songs, “I Wish You Love,” “Valentine,” and “Beautiful Stranger.”

However, the show could have been more fun for some people. While performing her song “Bored,” one of the four new tracks released with “Bewitched: The Goddess Edition,” a portable charger exploded like a sparkler in the section next to us. No one was hurt, but it was very shocking that something like that happened.

After that interruption, the show continued as normal, with Laufey performing her last two songs, “Lovesick” and “From The Start.” Fireworks began to ignite and fly off into the night sky, a show that could be comparable to Disneyland’s nighttime fireworks shows.

Afterwards, she bowed and left the stage saying, “I thought that I would never play with the LA Phil…it’s pretty shocking…we made it!”