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Lake Street Dive in Norfolk

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Lake Street Dive
The Dome by Rutter Mills — Virginia Beach, VA

Lake Street Dive is a Boston-based funk and soul band that somehow keeps getting better instead of calcifying into nostalgia. They started in the mid-2000s as a street busking group, which explains why their sound has this infectious, go-anywhere energy that doesn't care about genre lanes. Their 2013 album Bad Self Portraits introduced them to a wider audience, but it was 2015's Side Pony that made them unavoidable—tracks like 'Good as Hell' became the kind of song people who don't normally listen to funk actually sought out. Ssinger Rachael Price has a voice that can shift from breathy and intimate to absolutely commanding without breaking a sweat. The band treats every song like it's a negotiation with the listener, building grooves instead of just playing them, making arrangements that breathe and shift. They're serious musicians who refuse to sound serious about it.

Shows feel like a really good party where the musicians somehow have more fun than the audience, which is impossible but they manage it anyway. Price commands the stage without trying. Crowds move without being told to.

Known for Good as Hell, It Happened to Me, Bad Self Portraits, Side Pony, What Would a Wise Man Do

Lake Street Dive rolled through The NorVa back in early 2019 with the kind of setlist that rewards people who actually know their catalog. They opened with "You Are Free" and spent the night threading together deep cuts like "Bobby Tanqueray" and "Side Pony" alongside the obvious crowd-pleasers. "Bad Self Portraits" landed late in the set, and they closed things out with "Dude"—a fitting way to end a show that felt less like hitting the expected marks and more like hanging out with a band that knows exactly what they're doing.

Norfolk's got a quieter relationship with live music than some East Coast cities, but there's real appetite here for bands that actually play their instruments. The funk and soul DNA that Lake Street Dive channels runs through Hampton Roads in ways most tourists miss — it's in the water, inherited from generations of Navy families and local musicians who learned to make noise matter. A band this tight should find something to work with.

Stay in the Ghent neighborhood — it's got actual character with tree-lined streets and converted warehouses. Dinner at Commune, which does locally-sourced food without the pretense. After the show, grab late-night food at d'Egg in Ocean View. Spend a day at the Chrysler Museum of Art if you want something substantial, or walk the waterfront at Town Point Park. Norfolk's food scene has gotten genuinely good in the last five years. The military history is everywhere if you're interested in that angle too.

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