peak performance: Aldous Harding @ Pacific Electric

I couldn't really see Aldous Harding for much of her set at Pacific Electric last night. She was sitting down amid her ensemble, and the club was full of Talls. And normally I am not an "I must seeeee the singer everryyyyy secondddd" type of concert attendee—hell, I have experienced entire electronic sets with my eyes closed—but Harding was so unbelievably captivating that I did yearn to witness her. This yearning made the times when she was standing up/visible feel like a drink of cold water on a hot day. I did not realize I was going to be experiencing so much dramatic tension at this show, which was silly, considering how much dramatic tension there is on the newest Aldous Harding record.

Kabir Kumar tipped me off to that record via IG stories. I can't remember what they said about "One Stop" but it was effusive enough to get me to sample the wares. I can write 2,000 words about music-induced transcendence, but maybe the most powerful song recommendations come from simple hyperbole...from...BLURBS? I blather, but I should be blurbing. Honing my blurbsmanship. These are what push the paper, these are what get the streams streaming.

You know who didn't blather? The Aldous Harding audience. This was the most rapt crowd I have experienced since, uhhh, maybe Joanna Newsom at Kilby Block Party? And that was outdoors, with sound bleed and Utah wind blowing. At Pacific Electric, I heard nary a mutter, sniff or cough. (Someone dropped a glass up in the balcony right at the end of the first song, which made sense, she was so hypnotic you could easily forget you were holding a beer.) This was a funky eyeglasses kind of crowd. A crowd who almost certainly listens to some form of NPR. Someone behind me was telling his neighbor about his vintage camera, which was digital, but had a film-style wind lever you had to cock between shots. I spoke with a nice married couple about their concertgoing habits—they'd recently taken her 12-year-old daughter to a festival where KATSEYE played, and every tween had "watched" them with one hand in the air, holding their phone, recording video.

No one held their phone up for Aldous Harding. It felt weird to do so when I snapped a single pic. It's hard to describe, but everything she did onstage felt ever so slightly ironic, nodding to the ridiculousness of what was happening—750 people facing the stage, hanging off her every word and note. The song "What Am I Going To Do?" in particular switches on and off between this bouncy, sinister groove and a plaintive pause in which Harding wonders, voice sizzling with pure need, "What am I gonna do if I can't break out of it?"; every time that switch occurred and the bass and drums kicked back in, Harding started moving around the stage in a way that said, Here I Am, Moving Around The Stage, For You.

Her ensemble was wonderful and brought a crackling energy to the Train on the Island songs, which are minimal in arrangement but require a keen sense of time, touch, and restraint. They've all been on an extensive tour since May but did not show signs of weariness. I feel like I hear L.A. is a tough crowd because everyone's so scrubbed clean of enthusiasm by the steel wool of the entertainment industry, but this audience was so locked in and pleased to be there, so maybe the energies got matched accordingly. Have I said what Harding sounds like? A little folky, a little jazzy, a cousin to something like Fiona Apple or Cat Power, but with this aura of performance art to it. One step removed from authenticity, not bothering to pretend that being onstage and singing about having bechamel sauce on your face, or spitting out the line "Big thick coats on the dogs of people just trying to help" over and over, isn't a totally ridiculous thing to do. Understanding that performing is weird, no matter how naturally it may come.

At least that's how I took it. The other 749 people might have gotten something completely different out of it, but I didn't stay to chat with any of them. I had to get home! I was hungry after walking a long way to the metro station, then walking a lot more through Chinatown to the venue. Taking public transportation to a venue lets me cling to the scraps of my old NYC lifestyle, even if what would be a 14-minute drive takes an hour on the A line. Chris was on the couch listening to some kind of trance mix and making plans for a future Italian-themed dinner party. "I'm going to have to get up early to grate all the Parmesan I need," he said. One minute you're skulking around in the urban dark, taking pictures of the night vibes, the next you're home and making plans for your cheese. Good life, no notes.

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