Sharon Van Etten heralded a busy week of music in Salt Lake City when she played Metro Music Hall on Tuesday (May 13, 2025), supporting their latest, 2025’s Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory. Without leaning on any opener, the band started out quietly and powerfully with “Live Forever,” and kept an attentive crowd nothing less than captivated from that point on. On one hand, it immediately felt like a band that’s risen to the full extent of its superpowers. On that other hand, it was just ethereal. Powerful. Emotional. If a resident (or touring) witch cast a spell on the lot of us on Tuesday, we were all the better for it.
Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photo and Video
This album is the first the band’s ever written together, and the concert felt like an extension of that. Throughout the evening, Van Etten did her share of checking in with all on stage, pulling attention and giving the rest their due whenever it felt right to do so. While new songs were primarily on display — they tackled all but “Indo” off their 10-track album — Van Etten still dabbled into crowd favorites territory, with a nod to the late, great David Lynch (“Tarifa”), a sped-up version of “Every Time The Sun Comes Up,” and, of course, “Seventeen”. That last tune found Van Etten bending down and sing-screaming directly into a fan’s face on the front row, which was likely a far better souvenir to take home than anything at the merch booth.
It’s worth noting that the new album feels especially good and already fits whatever your most comfortable tee feels like. If you’ve not scooped up or streamed it yet, you’re doing yourself a grave disservice. This review comes with the best kind of homework: go listen to all of it. Dance along. Sing. You may even accidentally fall in love.
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