Laufey at RAC Arena w/ Leonie Biney Saturday, July 25, 2026
The current Icelandic queen of whimsy, Laufey, gathered seemingly all this city’s cosplayers under the age of twenty-five and thousands more to a sold-out RAC Arena on Saturday night, celebrating her first time in Perth with a concert that absolutely brimmed with ambition and joy.
From the very first moments lined up for entry, surrounded by thousands of fans in cloth crowns or bunny ears, with many others dressed as Disney princesses, Arthurian queens, or manga heroes, to the merch desks that were packed out at every level, the anticipation that tonight would be something special only continued to escalate.
Beginning the evening was Leonie Biney, freshly arrived from England and more than ready to support her headliner for this entire Australian tour. Both her first time down under and her first time in an arena setting, Biney brought a set full of raw authenticity, with her overall style: chill, acoustic, and quietly confessional.
Leonie Biney
The track list Biney provided was all of high quality, but two of the standouts could have been Full Circle, which contained a slightly grittier edge than the rest, and the brand-new song I Like, a gentle bossa nova for which Biney put down her guitar, left the music to her drummer and keyboardist, and danced, seeming to fully lean into the moment.
The band took up only a small portion of the stage, but their music had easily filled the arena. At times, faced with the reality of the biggest audience she had ever played to, many members of whom seemed to know every lyric, Biney admitted she was on the verge of tears—happy tears. She had broken into the big leagues tonight and totally owned them, even if it had been with a lump in her throat the entire time.
Leonie Biney
Making her entrance to movie-style opening credits, backed by a big band, dancers, and wearing a glorious yellow tulle dress, Laufey brought forward a show that combined golden-age Hollywood, peak Broadway, and showgirl Las Vegas all in one, with enough fantastical fairytale elements to satisfy almost every whimsy. Added in with white rabbits and animated clocks that melted into never-ending spirals, a surrealist Alice in Wonderland, if ever there was any, one could almost forget this was a music concert, up until the very moment Laufey began to sing.
Divided into four acts, akin more to a theatrical production than a standard setlist, the first act began joyfully with Clockwork and Lover Girl, the latter wonderfully punctuated with three quarters of the crowd clapping in time as Laufey twirled on stage with a huge smile on her face. For Dreamer, the singer danced up a staircase that was the main stage prop tonight and happily sat on the actual swing set atop those stairs before she glided down the other side with as much poise and grace as Ginger Rogers ever had.
Sitting down for a moment to speak to the crowd, Laufey noted her first encounter with a kangaroo the previous day, detailed her sense of wonder when seeing such new animals in the flesh and expanded the topic further to include the new cities she had visited the past several months. Australia is so far away but so worth it, she said, and, to the common impression that Perth is considered extremely isolated, Laufey reminded all that Iceland got even less tours during her youth.
Laufey
She hoped that tonight would allow her fans to sing, dance, and perhaps even cry, before backing up on that last point with an all too honest yet self-deprecating line about external validation. Later in the concert, Laufey again spoke directly to all those in attendance, stated she still felt like one of us and that the reason she put so many of her own vulnerabilities in her music was that it fostered authentic connection with anyone who listened. Indeed, she said it was likely that in this evening’s audience, whatever was happening to one person was likely happening to many, to look around, and to feel the communal bond.
Act Two asked if the audience was ready for some jazz as one of the largest venues in the city swiftly transformed into an intimate, all-ages dive bar and the visuals on the big screens turned to sepia or black and white. Laufey returned front of stage in a flapper-style fringed dress, tightly surrounded by bass, piano, and drums, refusing to hide her love for this particular art form.
Laufey stated that with this part of the performance, she was happy to nerd out and had given full permission to her team to provide new jazz arrangements for her older songs. For example, Fragile had probably been through ten iterations already during her career; why not add an eleventh?
Laufey
Laufey took another break away from song to present the Best Dressed Guest award, and suddenly the extensive cosplay seen upon entry made sense to the few casuals in the audience. Winning the award was a young fan dressed as white rabbit mascot Mei Mei, with Laufey easily demonstrating she could have been a children’s television presenter in another lifetime. The phrase “don’t drop your crown, queen” warmly reverberated around the arena as the show continued.
Returned to her piano, Laufey concluded Act Two with Let You Break My Heart Again, the oldest track she had brought on this tour, and the first of her career that had resonated with the public. Laufey’s own distinct style was mixed in with classical music; its success had given the artist the confidence to continue her path, all the way to where she was now. Partway through this delicate and heartfelt song, the lights from the audience came up, unbidden, with perhaps a fifty-fifty split between those that had raised their torches up and those recording the song. Photos and video from the fans were positively encouraged, another difference to many other performances at RAC, the only limitation given tonight with regards to lens size.
Act Three was another dose of delightful whimsy, especially with song Carousel and cello instrumental Cuckoo Ballet, before Act Four pulled together all the emotional strings that had been carefully laid through the earlier acts. Laufey channelled a seeming ocean of heartbreak into some deliciously devastating takedowns of those who had disappointed her, perhaps best highlighted via Mr Eclectic, Madwoman, and Tough Luck.
Laufey
She then turned a literal mirror upon herself with Snow White, all but tearing the veil aside between artist and fans as she admitted many of her self-doubts when she was younger. Laufey also advised that with the album she was currently touring, A Matter of Time, she had wished to dig deeper into these insecurities, to connect with her audience on a much more honest level, and to tell them that it would be okay.
Taken all together, Laufey’s storytelling, vulnerability, and lyrical abilities were sublime. Taken back to the evening as entertainment, the production values given throughout the concert were absolutely superb, and awards likely were deserved for animation and cinematography, at the very least.
Laufey concluded her performance with Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self—as she looked out into the audience, full of her adoring fans, she stated she knew so many of them were artists themselves, and for them to dream as big as she once had. A virtuous circle that should happen more often than it actually does: the crowd loved the performer, and the performer loved them right back in equal measure.
Still very much on an upward trajectory, Laufey has not yet conquered the world, but if this joyful, quirky, and spectacular production is anything to go by, she will absolutely get there, probably by the time of her very next release.
