Dolly Ave at The Moroccan Lounge

Dolly Ave is carving out space as one of the few Asian women making noise in rock, and her live show at the Moroccan Lounge in LA made it clear why people are paying attention. From the songs she performed to the merch on the table, what stood out to me was how personal everything felt, showcasing the amount of love and care she put in to make her first tour a really special experience for her fans.

Speaking of the merch table: Dolly didn’t just sell t-shirts, she made them. Each “Bad Brain” shirt in the pile was bleached by hand, meaning no two were exactly alike. It’s a small detail, but it says a lot about how she approaches her fans. The tour itself is also powered by Converse, and that partnership showed up in the best way: a raffle at the end of the night, with a handful of fans walking away with custom-made Converse, a piece of memorabilia to commemorate such a special night.

The set moved through nearly every register she has, from playful to raw, without ever losing momentum. “This Spell” opened with that familiar fake it till you make it energy, while “Killer Machine” turned the frustration of a bad situationship into something almost gleeful, the kind of song that makes heartbreak feel like a release instead of a weight.

She introduced “Summer” by talking about how adulthood tends to strip away the color that used to make everyday life feel exciting, and how the song was her attempt to chase that feeling back down, landing on something upbeat enough to get the crowd moving together. Then came “Better Side,” performed under a wash of dark red light, which she explained was inspired by the anime Death Note, right down to a choral section modeled after the show’s score. Underneath the reference, the song was really about refusing to stay complacent and choosing to do better.

The lighter moments hit just as hard. She laughed her way into “Hot Garbage,” joking that she basically wrote herself up as the red flag in the story. Before “Oh Ruby,” she told the crowd about trying (and failing) to write the song on shrooms in a cabin, before landing on a track about how real connection doesn’t care about sexuality, gender, or background. “Bad Brain” got one of the loudest reactions of the night. She was upfront that the song was about living with depression and anxiety, and the crowd sang every word back to her over a beat catchy enough to make the heavy subject matter feel like release instead of weight. “Misfit” sat with the discomfort of not quite fitting in anywhere, and “Party Never Ends” kept the momentum going with a wink, a song about being a little too in love with Hollywood for your own good.

By the time she got to “Crash,” phones were up across the whole venue, turning the room into a sea of small lights swaying along with the song. But it was the final song of the night, “Honda,” that people were clearly waiting for. She’s mentioned in past interviews that it’s become one of the most requested moments in her live sets, and watching the crowd’s reaction made it obvious why.

Taken together, the set felt like her own personal diary read out loud, funny in one breath and unguarded in the next.

Photography by @longtruong.jpg