St. Lucia at Terminal 5

Jean-Philip Grober

Jean-Philip Grobler, known by his stage name St. Lucia, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and sang in the Drakensberg Boys' Choir, learning everything from Bach to minimalist opera. Grobler experimented with rock music but, after 10 years, he grew bored with it and looked to the 1980s music from his childhood that had first inspired him. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, experimented with these new influences and the synth-pop St. Lucia was born in 2010. St. Lucia's one album, When the Night, was released in October 2013.

St. Lucia headlined two nights at Terminal 5 and turned the cavernous venue into a dance party. After a nearly year-long tour, Grobler acknowledged that this engagement was a special homecoming that most of the songs were either written in New York or inspired by New York. Singing, playing guitar and keyboards and backed by four musicians, including his wife, keyboardist Patti Beranek, St. Lucia was all about lush, dreamy, high-energy, nostalgic pop. The band performed all of its debut album plus a few songs from previous EPs. While the songs were relatively new, the sound was a revisit to decades-old dance-pop music. The songs were driven by simple vocal melodies and layered synthesizer runs that repeated thickly to build crescendos. By the time the confetti canons shot during "Elevate," it already felt like New Year's Eve.

Visit St. Lucia at www.stlucianewyork.com.