Photos by Jim Michaels (@jmichaels.jpeg) © 2020 Early Bird Music
On Friday night, Mercury Lounge’s walls were packed with teens ready to see rising star Audrey Mika perform her first-ever NYC show. Sold-out for weeks in advance, the YouTuber-turned-recording artist has been building her fanbase over the past few years covering popular hits from today’s biggest artists.
In October, she inked a recording deal with RCA Records, and her sound has fittingly evolved, demonstrating more emotional and lyrical depth than ever. Songs like “Fake Heartbreak” and “4712,” which she wrote on long drives from her native San Francisco down to recording studios in Los Angeles over the course of 2019 demonstrate her keen ability to describe how she’s feeling as her whole life has been changed in front of her eyes.
Now in the midst of her first headline tour, she’s finally getting to prove herself on the road and in front of her earliest fans across North America. Her New York stop at Mercury Lounge was an impressive debut in one of music’s most critical markets – she delivered far above everything you could expect from someone who is still so relatively new to the scene and only has a handful of live performances to her name.
Audrey’s energy was all the way up from the start as her New York fans chanted her name proudly, anxious for her to kick off the night. From the outset, Mika was comfortable on stage, taking the microphone with her as she engaged with fans and paraded around the stage with confidence. With such an important show, it would be understandable if nerves ever threw her voice off, but it rarely happened as she sang each note like a seasoned pro. She engages fans easily while singing
Along with performing her latest new music and a taste of her next single, Audrey surprised one lucky concert-goer in the crowd by singling her out, bringing her up on stage and announcing her as one of Audrey’s earliest fans that she could remember. That’s the type of move that endears true fans, and makes everyone realize that Audrey Mika is a true artist with a long career ahead as long as she keeps up this signature enthusiasm and fan interest along the way.
Audrey Mika is from the new breed of internet-native artists who come into the music industry with a developed brand identity along with hoards of fans who are already sold on the product, and because of that she’s in a far more advantageous place early on than most new acts who step onto the scene, trying to crack into the spotlight.