Soft red, blue and violet lights moved across the Masonic Lodge on Nov. 12, casting the room in calm color. NoSo flowed through a performance that felt thoughtful and sincere, exploring ideas of identity, growth and belonging.
The performance marked the final stop of a North American tour that followed the October release of NoSo’s second album, “When Are You Leaving?” The Los Angeles–based indie-pop artist, known for sharp, emotionally precise writing about identity and self-acceptance, launched the run in Washington, D.C., earlier in the month before concluding it with the Los Angeles date. The next stretch of the tour heads to the U.K. and Europe in February 2026.
The night began with Canadian indie artist JayWood, whose upbeat, groove-heavy sound filled the space with easy energy. His confident presence and rhythm-driven songs warmed up the crowd, making the shift into NoSo’s quieter world feel natural, almost seamless.
With a full band onstage, NoSo opened with “A Believable Boy,” pulling the room into stillness. The song moved with a steady, pulsing drum pattern that contrasted with its aching melody, carrying the weight of a narrator looking back at a past self with both tenderness and unease. Lines like “I look up to rewind, a believable boy… and they loved you, so long” drifted through the room, the delivery soft but unflinching. The live arrangement gave the track more physical presence, adding intensity to the emotional heaviness.
Throughout the set, the lighting shifted in washes of cooler and warmer tones, tracking the emotional arc of each song as the night moved through different registers.
Later in the night, “Feeling Like a Woman Lately” offered a moment of airy release. With the band pulling back into softer, lighter textures, NoSo’s voice turned almost translucent as the arrangement thinned out. The performance leaned into the song’s mix of vulnerability and self-observation. Under orange-red light, the stage glowed with both warmth and fragility as the track unfurled with gentler ease compared to the earlier intensity of “A Believable Boy.”
Between songs, NoSo paused to talk about their own sense of change. “When I first moved here, I really didn’t want to understand that it was home. I was so angry at the time,” they said. “But now I think this place has helped me become a fuller person.”
That sense of quiet reflection carried into “Let It Die” and “I Feel You,” where sadness didn’t resolve but softened into something like acceptance. The audience swayed softly, some with eyes closed, as the music shifted between tension and calm.
Moments like these invited a reflection from the crowd. Yohana Teshome, who became a fan of NoSo about a year ago, said the artist’s songs “helped me become more honest with my identity, my queerness and how I deal with big emotions.” She described the night as deeply personal, adding that as someone who struggles with mental health, “the music has really helped me through hard moments.”
Another fan, Heather Liu, described the atmosphere as “really awesome and intimate.” She said NoSo “seems calm and composed, but when they sing, all the emotions come out. That contrast between restraint and honesty really stays with you.”
As the night went on, that gentle connection deepened, and the music filled the venue with a whisper.
For the encore, NoSo performed a stripped-back version of “Kaitlin” with just their guitar. The quiet simplicity of the song ended the night on an intimate note.
Even offstage, that same sincerity carried through.
In an interview with elevASIAN, the artist said hearing fans describe their music as comforting “means so much” to them. They also shared that moving to Los Angeles in high school helped them feel more at ease with themselves, especially in a city that felt “so lively and diverse.”
NoSo added that, among the night’s setlist, “Who Made You This Sweet?” remains the song that feels most special. The song offers a soft, intimate look at tenderness and insecurity, tracing small moments of affection and doubt before ending on the quietly aching refrain, “Who made you this sweet?”
“I really think LA is my favorite place in the world,” NoSo said mid-set. “I’m really grateful for you.”