Sarah Kang Brings Her “Hopeless Romantic” Tour to New York’s LPR This Sunday
While tickets are sold out, a waitlist is available for all ticket tiers.
Sarah Kang’s music thrives in winter. Throughout a nine year career, Kang has made the romantic music perfect for a quiet night in or to listen to while working at a cozy cafe. (If you want the proof, she’s actually written two songs directly channeling these aesthetics: “Corner Cafe” and “Cozy”).
So, what better city to experience Kang’s music than in New York? This Sunday, Kang brings her “Hopeless Romantic” tour to the city’s Le Poisson Rouge and while tickets are sold out, you can still join a waitlist for general admission, table seats and meet and greet. Kang’s New York concert serves as both a hometown concert and the end of a near sold-out run for the singer. This is also, as Kang noted on an Instagram post, the last time fans will catch her live for a while before she' becomes a mother.
The “Hopeless Romantic” tour supports Kang’s second album of the same name, and is a reflection of what a unique artist Kang is in music. While new fans might have found Kang through NewJean’s Hanni’s cover of “Once in a Moon”, Kang’s steadily developed a dedicated fanbase over the past few years. Since her debut in 2015 with the EP “Fair Weather”, Kang has created clear-eyed, remarkably self-assured music. Notably, she’s one of a handful of independent Asian American women who are on the rise in jazz and pop music.
“Hopeless Romantic” was one of my favorite albums of 2023 thanks to Kang’s keen eye as a storyteller. Her music never feels larger than life; instead, it focuses on the smaller moments of joy or our evolution of feelings as we fall in love. It’s that authenticity that I’ve grown to love most about each song she’s released.
“It all started when I wrote the title track in January - about how jaded and cynical I feel like I’ve become over the years, how we experience hurt and pain, how we lose our childhood naïveté,” Kang wrote in a post announcing the album. “But somehow, we find ways to heal and hope, and there are still those things and people that make us feel like hopeless romantics.”
As Kang has traveled through each city, she’s shared photos and videos from fans, often tagging them if they give her gifts or share a funny story. Like the singer, her fandom are curious, intelligent romantics who don’t have many role models like Kang in entertainment. I was most touched by a message one fan left after she met Kang because, well, I feel the same way. “Thank you,” she wrote in an Instagram Story that Kang reshared, “for making me feel like a hopeful romantic.”
Check back on Monday for my recap of Sarah’s show, along with some photos and videos!
