my first orchestra concert. it was ok. sorta mid in the nicest way but i also do not care about the franchise. somehow managed to call an aerith cosplayer tifa.

mediocre show, i was underdressed, felt dumb, bassist could not keep tempo, the audience kept talking over the entire performance, and someone's dad spilled his drinks on me and didn't apologize. i saw you pretend not to notice you egg.

the best shows are the ones that will blow your ears out with 808s (or anything low range).
my defense: i had predetermined that i liked their music before they blew up in 2019.

openers: (first opener missed)
hong kong fuck you
dreamcrusher
99jakes

written day of
the drive there was 30 min which was mind blowing to me because that drive + a little further was the same drive that took me 90 min to go to work. for some reason i was rly anxious about coming to the show so i'm glad that the venue was a place i had been to twice bcuz at least i'd know what to expect in that aspect

i thought i wouldnt have to wait that long if i came an hour later the doors opened but alas. wrong again. but i'm glad because i think i actually enjoyed one of the openers the most and i would've missed them if i had come any later. ive been to concerts alone more than a handful of times now and i think my final consensus is that i don't think i like it. i don't know if i dont like it to the point i'd rather not experience the music live at all but i guess it depends on how badly i'd wanna see said group

anyway, i got in, paid $6 for a bottle of water, waited for the 2nd opener to set up which was hong kong fuck you (i hate that name) and i think i easily enjoyed watching them the most. i can't tell if how early they played has any correlation to my enjoyment (which is related to my energy level). it was hard to note what genre they were; not quite metal but elements of hardcore with some riffs that remind me of metal music. the tracks were so short they basically ended when they started but that's part of the fun; their shit goes so hard and so loud really fast. the drummer played blind folded and i assumed it was see through but he had to take the blindfold off to look at the setlist which cracked me up. he did a lot of the screams and with every track they played he took an item of clothing off (he started with pants only) and it really didn't take that long before he straight up was just nude on the stage.

before their set i had snuck a peek at the merch table and i thought this one shirt was cute and considered getting it but the folks manning the booth were buzy socializing and i decided fuck it, it's good to save my money anyway. but after i saw them play i think it really convinced me to get a shirt. it has peko the milky girl in the center with the band name on it, and i purchased from the drummer that went nude. he was actually really nice for a guy that was screaming at the audience naked on stage and flashed me a warm smile that revealed his lil crooked teeth when he handed me the shirt and he gave me a sincere thank you. i hope he knows that i enjoyed the set because i'm really bad at telling performers that i think they did great. i paid thru venmo and he liked the transaction and i thought that was nice. support ur local bands! have them like ur venmo transaction! and grow the nerve to tell them they were great!

anyway dreamcrusher was next and honestly for the first half of their set all i could think was "what in the noise making gy!be wannabe soundin shit is this" cuz they had this strange spanish monologue overlaid on top of almost could be would be instrumentals clashed with harsh indsturial noises (except it wasn't good, sorry) and thank god i purchased earplugs after hkfy because my ears were ringing and would hav gone str8 deaf if they were open for this dudes set. i think the last like 5 min of his set went rly hard and i had fun cuz it turned into more of an industrial hip hop mix which i could get by but the other literal noise i just. why. and then there were the select people tryna "vibe" to this and bop their heads like there was a count to vibe to and all i could think was that they were pretending to pretentiously enjoy this but that's just me being close minded , You Mean Other Poeple Like Things That I Don't Like? i know

honestly by this point i kind of wanted to go home. the roof was fucking leaking, my legs hurt, i had been out since 8am, too sober to be in a warehouse while my ear was ringing, i was bored waiting alone in between setups, i was kind of over it tbh. machine girl actually sounded pretty fucking neat live and i appreciated that note but IDK i just wasnt really into it and was seriously waiting for the show to be over. i kind of wanted to leave earlier but they kept coming down to the fucking pit and moshing and it for some reason felt too close for me to just up and leave, like what if they saw me leaving the show in the middle??

anyway. all in all an interesting experience and im not glad i didn't miss it but i can't say i had an amazing time

opener:
magdalena bay

written day of

said set started at 8 (which they misstated because the doors opened at 8) and magdelena bay opened at 930 and odezenne didnt start until like 1030pm. i'm lucky this rando started talking to me because otherwise i wouldve been bored as fuck. his name was michael and he was really nice! i'm lucky i got along with him becuz we had like 2 hours to talk. we talked about how we hated rich people, how marie kondo sold out, and the state of our dying environment. he's an architect major and he told me that that house on legs (which has a name that i forgot already) was apparently built on legs because le corbusier wanted to repay the earth and build on top of the ground to allow some space for the earth to breathe and i loved that. learning about it in art history classes i was always taught it had a function but never what that function quite was. i guess now i know. he lives in ██████████ and called the 35 mile drive "close and down the street" which really fucked me up, because he also said that he thinks humans depend too much on cars and he thinks it's selfish and conceited to drive a car. IDK, i thought that was funny, i guess it is kind of conceited to drive a car if you think about it sideways. he seemed really optimistic and i just thought it was funny that we had contrasting different opinions of "ive lost hope for the environment" (me) vs "no we can do it! every little bit counts!" (him). i feel kind of bad because near the end of the day i got pretty quiet and started to make no effort towards being sociable because i got really tired and i think i couldve said bye better.

the opening band was cute! a duo: a female vocalist that hopped on the keys occasionally and a dude that did the instrumentals. i remember seeing her seated at the bar thinking "she sure is dressed peculiarly, i didn't know y2k was this popular" but she was literally performing. her voice kind of reminded me of grimes, it was all sweetened up with synths and echo but it still sounded really fuckin good, like you can't achieve that vocal sound with JUST echo good; her voice sounded like it was a studio mix. at some point i was pretty convinced she was lip syncing all of it but i was proven wrong later when she made these really strange adlib bird noises.

the music was nice; it was really "cute" in the way kkb music is (not to be mistaken as similar to kkb's music) it was like basic structured songs dolled up with all these extra layers of synths and instrumentals that made it really fun. i enjoyed hearing it live! the singer was selling their merch after her set and she was so nice and sweet. while i was picking up a cassette after their set she told me she didn't have a cassette player so she has no idea what they sound like yet and i thought that was funny.

afterwards, we waited like 20 min for odezenne to set up and honestly it's pretty crazy to me that i got to see them. the first 50 times i listened to souffle le vent i always thought to myself "i'd pay hundreds to hear this single song live" with the honest thought that i'll never see this strange, small synth hip hop french group until i die and all of a sudden they're in a tiny bar venue near(ish) me.

im sad to say that unfortunately, they are one of the bands that sounds better recorded, which is obvious considering what their music is and what the venue was but i guess i dont know what i expected! honestly without thinking about it i kind of assumed odezenne was one dude (idk why, dont ask me) and to my avail they're a band of 4: a drummer, a guy that does ALL THE SYNTHS AND ALL THE GUITAR AND ALL THE BASS AND ALL THE KEYS, and two rappers. (2! two.) hearing their music i never guessed there were two rappers and never would have guessed. i guess that goes to show you should doubt how i listen to my music lol. the show felt really long, idk if it's because i had been there since 8 after being at work for 9 hours and being awake for 12, but i hate to say that at some point i was kinda waiting for them to finish up so i could go home or at least sit down or something. ALSO sad to say that souffle le vent actually sounded kind of not good (bad) live; the parts i love the most about that song are stripped away and/or unemphasized live and it was kind of a bummer tht it didn't live up to my expectations but it was still awesome to say i was there to hear it.

half of the fun was seeing them dance, idk if it's them or if it's just a cultural thing but either way they danced funny. it was really cute, one of the rappers reminded me of one of my past professors (this extremely "chill" man that would ask students if he could charge his weed vape on their laptops) but he'd shake his butt like elmo would and it cracked me up every time he did it.

during their ~hour set they spoke a lot but they only spoke two sentences in english: "you're cute" to this girl who said something to him and "it's crazy to be so far from home" and every single other thing they spoke was in french and i had no idea what was going on but like 90% of the people at the venue (so like 15 people) seemed to understand fine so i guess it was a show for the french fans here.

i stood next to these two dudes that kind of reminded me of joaquin phoenix's joker, i think one dude (the one that actually had his hair slicked back like the joker does. he wore a suit jacket [i dont know why]) really was just havin the fuckin time of his life, he knew all the damn lyrics which made me think he was a foreigner but i asked him for a lighter and he said "of course" so fluently and kindly i was taken aback. maybe because i didnt expect him to be so nice? but while he was lookin for one his silent friend slid in and handed me his lighter and joker guy was like "guess he beat me to it. parliaments-- (as i took out my pack) i like parliaments. nice." i didn't really know what to say so i lit my cigarette and i passed the lighter back to the silent guy wearing a leather jacket and said thanks and walked away. i wouldve liked to talk to them and ask them about the show because joker guy looked like he was having SO MUCH FUN and it was so cute to see but i think i was all done for the day when it came to talking to strangers. anyway. that was my first parliament cigarette and i didnt like it. it tasted like plastic. i shouldve given him my box.