On November 10th, 2018 I saw Elle King at the Vic Theater in Chicago. I gotta say it was a lot more entertaining than I could have hoped. While most of the credit goes to Ms. King for her enthralling performance, there are a few other things to factor in as well. A couple fights. A touching moment between a mother and her son. All in all, pretty good night.
Anyone that knows my taste in music is aware of my proclivity for extreme metal genres. The genres of death, black, industrial, speed, and thrash metal comprise the majority of what I listen to and the shows I attend. But I listen to “everything”. Everything but country that is. Sure that’s a pretty common thing for a music hipster to say but as someone who grew up in Texas I feel like I have the experience to say that I don’t like a lot of country music.
I hadn’t heard any of King’s music (besides her single Ex’s and Oh’s) prior to the show. I lumped her together with the other pop-country acts I couldn’t stand. I WAS VERY WRONG. I had a wonderful time! I found myself really getting into the music despite actively expecting to dislike it. The fusion of country, pop, and rock struck some alchemical balance that I hadn’t heard before, and I think King’s voice is a key ingredient in that. It’s powerful and unique.
A lot of the songs were also really funny! One, “It Girl”, is all about King’s sexual exploits. “To be a hit it’s all in the wrists.” The whole song is played for laughs and the audience was in stitches. Fortunate for us, the whole audience included a fourteen (probably) year old boy and his mom in one of the second floor boxes. The kid was horrified at first but the mom seemed to find the whole thing hilarious. She grabbed her son around the shoulders and swayed back and forth with him. Upon listening to the song again this morning on Spotify I’ll say this: As with the best bands (IMO) there is a lot gained in the live performance. The song is good on its own but to watch it performed is a far more exciting thing.
Speaking of excitement, there was a lot of it adjacent to the performers on stage. From where we stood (back left, elevated, behind rails, super comfy) we could see that one lady was recording parts of the show on her phone. Not a problem right? It wouldn’t be, if her flash wasn’t on. If you had asked me before last night if you could record a video with flash I would have said “no, that’s fucking stupid.” You can though. I saw it. I’m gonna call this aspiring shutterbug Asshole for the remainder of this tale. The people around Asshole were visibly agitated but no one said anything for maybe half of the show. They hoped, perhaps, that the problem would solve itself, that she would have a sudden revelation of self-awareness, or maybe someone who worked there would decide to enforce that “no-flash” policy. No dice.
One brave soul, one radiant beacon of light who, for our purposes, I will call John Cena, stepped up to the plate. She motioned at Asshole for her attention and then through a combination of words and gestures indicated that she would like very much if asshole could turn off her flash. She turned the phone around, stared at the light on the front, and then turned it back around to continue unrepentantly flashing the crowd in front of her. Through speaking with my fiancée (who was also in attendance) I found out that she had earlier seen Asshole filming without the flash on. So theoretically she understood how to disable the light. After the polite actions of John Cena, her behavior became an absolutely self-centered assault on all the good and aware creatures of this planet. Cena must have felt similarly. Maybe five minutes later, I see her start to rev up like a truck on a mission, gathering speed towards an unstoppable collision.
Now to be fair, Asshole is standing in the center of one of the walkways through the crowd. She wasn’t the only one but she was technically “in the way”. Cena, on her hero’s quest to exit the theater in the most spectacular way imaginable, body checks Asshole a full ten to fifteen feet backwards onto the floor. The blinking idol of the inconsiderate, Asshole’s phone, went spinning away across the floor like a disco ball on a roomba. Our hero fell during the fight, spilling nastily on the steps leading to her salvation. Her friend (there was another brave soul with her who we’ll call the Squire of Infinite Reason and Truth (SquIRT)) rushed to her aid. SquIRT’s mighty glutes easily deflected Asshole’s pathetic grabs and slaps as Cena regained her feet. She fell a hero, but stood a Legend. Cena and SquIRT ran to freedom (the outside of the theater) while the indecisive Asshole stood in place, mumbling impotently to those around her. She was ignored aggressively.
Moments later a black-polo-emissary of the theater approached Asshole who had returned to watching the show. This emissary, this dark arbiter of justice, asked that Asshole please refrain from using her flash for the remainder of the concert, as it was against the policy of the venue.
The justice was ruthless and complete, and I felt a warm solidarity with Cena despite her vigilante tactics. So that’s where the violence ends right? NOPE.
Now as I mentioned a few paragraphs ago the majority of the shows I go to are metal shows. The audiences are “violent”, but in a fun, play-fight way. At least as far as I can attest. I’ve been in a few different pits, and it’s always in good fun. People help each other up when they fall, they embrace afterwards. It’s a good time. There was no good will among these inebriates. I learned two years ago that the front of a non-metal show is no place for someone like me. At a green day show at the Aragon Ballroom I started to panic when I could feel the heat and lack of hydration starting to take a toll on my breathing. People shoved and elbowed in a mean-spirited “It’s my manifest destiny to be at the front way.” The entitlement of a fan who thinks that they’re the “biggest fan” is a truly terrifying monument to douchebaggery.
So too was it here. In the middle of King’s “final” song (there was an encore that followed) a fight broke out at the very front between (from what I could see and from what people told me after) two very drunk women. I noticed something was amiss when King started to ad-lib (very skillfully) in the middle of an instrumental: “None of that, stop that, no fighting at this show, we don’t need none of that.” Kudos to her for calling them out. I looked down to see the two shoving each other pretty hard much to the chagrin of the people around them. A member of the security team (probably) hopped over the rails at the front of the stage to break up the fight. One of the combatants summoned the ludicrous drunky confidence to continue resisting and fighting even when a second person (a photographer I think) climbed over to assist the embattled bouncer. It was quite the spectacle. I’ve often wondered “how far can a bouncer go legally?” Well I’m not sure if it was legal but the bouncer ended up picking up and carrying her out towards the wings of the seating area with the photographer and punchy-mc-drunkpants’s four or so friends in tow. King asked the other brawler (who I guess was in the right simply by losing the fight or giving up or whatever) if she was alright and then went on to give a brief monologue about how love is great and violence is never the answer and we should all work together to fix our problems. Which I agree with! For like 99.8% of those in attendance, you could probably have those conversations. But for that .02%. It’s John Cena.