Words and Photos by Emmie Sweeting
Canadian singer, Lauren Spencer Smith, brought her worldwide The Art of Being A Mess tour to Chicago, Illinois this March. Smith is familiar with the stage, starting strong in 2015 with sharing a stage with country artist, Keith Urban, after winning a competition. She then started posting youtube covers, eventually earning her way on the American Idol stage in 2020 where she was unfortunately cut before the Top 20 episode.
I personally found her on TikTok with her first single release, “Fingers Crossed” in 2022. From there, her career has blown up into allowing her to perform in auditoriums around the world and gaining the opportunity to open for ex-Disney act, Hilary Duff, on her comeback tour.
Smith enters the stage set with a phone booth, street signs, and a bench with labels such as “emotional arrival zone” and “sad girl on a bench.” Wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey, Smith starts the set with the popular song “IF KARMA DOESN’T GET YOU (I WILL)” immediately energizing the crowd with her arrival. Throughout the show, Smith gets phone calls from the telephone booth to transfer to each act of the show.
The audience is involved throughout the show, one girl even getting her service dog up on stage with a custom Lauren Spencer Smith t-shirt that was signed by the artist herself. Halfway through the show, Smith brings out a “Box of Secrets” and lets audience members read out loud secrets that were filled out by attendees prior to the show; each getting lots of gasps and laughs from the audience.
Smith put her emotional journey of losing friends and partners into a beautiful piece of work for others to share and relate to in a special way. Coming together with others who have gone through similar journeys to sing, cry and dance to Smith’s album was a beautiful sight to see.
Loudspeaker Collective 