Give a F*ck LA Wildfire Relief Benefit: Rain Soaked Lesbian Indie Millennials, Confronting My Own Ignorance, & Fred Armisen
A fire benefit in the rain and a bunch of indie singers with strong lesbian fanbases? I love LA.
I attended the Give a F*ck LA Wildfire Relief Benefit because I knew that not only was my money going to a good cause but I was going to be introduced to a ton of artists I wasn’t familiar with. Even though a lot of the artists on the lineup make music that’s not necessarily my favorite style (most of the lineup was what I’d classify as strictly indie or indie-pop and I personally like a more rock driven indie sound) I don’t necessarily think not being a fan of a type of music should stop you from attending a show where that kind of music might be prevalent. If you aren’t a fan of country music for example, possibly seeing a bunch of different country artists with incredibly different approaches to country might attract you to a specific artist you probably wouldn’t have discovered on your own.
That was my mindset walking into the Palladium and reflecting back I did pretty much exactly that.
There were one artist in particular though who from the jump was able to grab my attention and really showcase his incredible skills as a performer.
Perfume Genius
I hate to put this in writing but until last night I literally thought Perfume Genius was a brown haired lesbian indie singer. I don’t know why or how I was led to believe this (maybe it’s because his name gets brought into conversation with artists like MUNA, Boygenius, and St. Vincent) but when John C Reilly introduced him and he came on stage I legitimately thought he was maybe Perfume Genius’ cute piano player. When he finally started playing though and everything clicked into place I was invested. Because of my own ignorance he was from the jump able to change everything I thought (or I guess didn’t think?) about him as an artist and performer.
Perfume Genius performed two covers on the piano for his set. “Don’t Take it Too Bad” by Townes Van Zandt and “4 Minute Warning” by Radiohead. Something that struck me with not only his performance but many others that night was the intimacy of it all. Maybe it was the dozens of candles that littered the stage or maybe it was because many of the performances that night were quite scaled back but there was something about him as a performer that captured my attention during his entire set. How was it that tonight was the night I discovered an artist with a sound that I was completely obsessed over? This goes back to my earlier point about how I went to the show knowing very little about many of the artists on the lineup. I went into the venue with really no expectations at all and with only an urge to listen and reflect. And both I did as I not only was able to discover an artist who I thought I knew but I was able to see how sometimes our own ignorance sometimes plays a role in discovering new music you might actually enjoy.
There was one person on the lineup though who I’ve been a huge fan of for as long as I could remember.
Fred Armisen
I grew up obsessing over the entire cast of Saturday Night Live in the early to mid 2000’s, especially Fred Armisen. The gay couple from NJ Weekend Update bit with Bill Hader, Garth and Kat, The Californians! All of these have been ingrained into my frontal lobe for as long as I could remember. So when I saw Fred Armisen’s name on the lineup I was really excited because not only did I expect something hilarious but I also knew that has an extremely talented drummer.
For his set Armisen did a history of punk music from the late 60’s to 1999. I had seen him do a similar thing on the Tonight Show with a guitar but it was incredibly cool to see him do this on the drums. What I loved about Armisen’s placement in the show’s lineup was that it, for me at least, brought the mood and tone of the show up exponentially. For the most part the majority of the performers that night were stripped back and quite solemn. Which makes perfect sense when it’s literally a concert benefit to raise money for a horribly tragic event. With that said though I don’t think just because it’s a solemn event that the entire event has to make audiences want to burst into tears. Fred Armisen’s set brought levity into not only this event but everything going on in the world right now. Things will burn and politicians will be fucks but punk music has been here and will be here.
Conclusion
Like the invention of the Birkenstock or the white Subaru the Give a F*ck LA Wildfire Relief Benefit was tailor made for the millennial lesbian. And despite not being part of either of those two subgroups and despite again not being a huge fan of music that could be classified strictly as indie (even though this term is incredibly broad and hard to define) I had an amazing time attending and watching all the performers. I was able to see multiple artists I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to purchase tickets for excel in their craft.
By attending this event my eyes were opened to the compassion people have for LA. That night all of us from the fans who wanted to see their favorite bands to the artists playing on the stage were there to support LA. In a time of extreme divisiveness it’s nice that we can still all come together with compassion and love as indie music obsessed Americans to support one another. It’s something we’ll need desperately during these next couple years.
Below I’m linking the donation pages to the four organizations that the concert was benefitting. One Voice, Altadena Girls, Pasadena Humane, & Friends in Deed.
Cheers,
Dev
https://www.onevoice-la.org/fire-relief
https://www.pledge.to/altadena-girls
https://give.pasadenahumane.org/give/654134/#!/donation/checkout
https://friendsindeedpas.org