Kaleah Lee’s New Jersey Debut at The Stone Pony
asbury park, new jersey - june 9th, 2024
The past and present collided late last Sunday night at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ when the venue, with a history that dates back to 1974, welcomed Kaleah Lee and Del Water Gap to their sunny beachside town and stage. Kaleah Lee got her start on TikTok in 2019 after her serene covers of popular songs caught the internet's attention. Her cover of Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” amassed nearly 820k views. From there, Kaleah started telling her own stories through original music and began touring with a few artists this past spring, including Del Water Gap most recently. While her time on stage is just burgeoning, her talent as a songwriter and storyteller is deep set.
Kaleah Lee. Photo via @kaleahlee on Instagram
Kaleah made a quiet entrance onto the stage, supported by her two guitars, and promptly started playing her first song. By the rhythmic chorus of “Bird Watcher”, she had the crowd’s attention. In the rare intimate setting of just three hundred fans, Kaleah captured the audience's attention as she introduced herself and mentioned that this was her debut performance in New Jersey. She swapped out her electric guitar for her acoustic and gentle fingerpicking filled the garage-like room. Kaleah played a few more songs off her EP released in March, which shares a name with her first song, including “The Rain” and “Where’d The Time Go”. The latter song perfectly showcased her ability to capture feelings with her lyrical mastery. She sings about the bitter feeling of time passing through the lyrics: “A bright start to your day; And the goldmine of sleep; how you welcome the tears; How the juice switched to tea.” After that lyrical gut punch, she joked with the crowd about how most of her songs are sad and the crowd cheered back. They didn’t seem to mind.
Kaleah’s voice is undoubtedly rare: smooth, soft and as layered as the emotions she sings about. Her genius is her ability to turn an experience into a piece of art. She told the crowd the inspiration behind a few of her next songs. “Fever”, an unreleased song that she played for the first time live, was written about a bad dream. Drawing from her struggle with feelings like a people pleaser, she wrote “Asking Price”. Kaleah captures this complex emotion using the imagery of orange slices in her lyrics: “I don't mind peeling the orange skin; counting the slices; end up with less than ten.” Her next song, “Wake”, is sourced from the disorienting feeling of returning home and feeling disconnected from a place that should be familiar. Beyond songwriting, she encapsulates emotions and experiences that are often indescribable through her lyrical expression. For the last few moments of her set, Kaleah played a sweet cover of one her favorite songs, “re: stacks” by Bon Iver, which paired perfectly with her voice. She wrapped up her time on stage with one last original song, “Anchored”, and left the crowd contemplating over the lyrics, “scared that I’ll make the call to just settle; I’ll believe being free is detrimental.”
Kaleah Lee at The Stone Pony. Photo via @kaleahlee on Instagram
Throughout the venue, the walls of The Stone Pony are adorned with guitars signed by music legends, tracing its vibrant history back to the 1970s. A beacon of rock and roll, the venue was an early supporter of many careers, and welcomed back iconic artists including Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. Surrounded by this legacy of live music, Kaleah Lee, a talented songwriter and singer, solidified her place among the new wave of musicians with immense potential.