Angela Jin

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UTS Queer Revue 2020, Higher School Musical, speaks to every millennial and Gen Z. Is there a better way to spend an evening than to watch beloved pop culture and childhood characters be defiled, sexualised, and politicised? Didn’t think so. If, like many, you yearn to see live theatre again, then you won’t want to miss out on this year’s cheeky and energetic UTS Queer Revue!

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Sevin, Alice, and I were unsure what to expect, but we were excited nonetheless when we arrived on Tuesday night to catch the rehearsal. Despite the lockdown hiatus, the cast and crew have managed to come back together and put on a dazzling show. The show kicks off with a high energy opening and closes with an equally lively number. We giggled, belly laughed and, at one point, went on a rollercoaster of emotions. Darn sock puppets.

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Emily Mead, performer, sums the show up to be about, “Stuff that shouldn’t be sexy, but is.” Have you ever seen houseplants come together and make sexual advances on their human? Queer Revue has it all and more!

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Though largely satirising and mocking through a queer lens, Higher School Musical has something for everyone. Topics touch on racism, dick pics, classism, environmentalism, rental market, vegan jokes, fresh interpretations of tired memes, contemporary art, and more. There’s social commentary aplenty for all to relate to and left a lasting impression on each of the Vertigo editors who were invited to the rehearsal. Other skits simply offer multifaceted absurdity. Some skits are so efficient that the actors had barely walked on stage before walking off again.

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Our personal favourites include: “Straight Man Confused By The Existence of Lesbians”, the “IKEA song parody”, and “Ninja Turtles Face Common Turtle Problem”.

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The song parodies were unanimously agreed to be some of the best skits in the show. We were serenaded by familiar melodies and tickled by new lyrics. We left the show humming “…get’cha dick out the frame, we gotta get’cha get’cha get’cha get’cha dick out the frame…” The songs were catchy, funny, and clever enough to make you forget that this is only an amateur production.

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The humble cast of ten were tasked to each play a multitude of characters over the course of ninety minutes, but they rose to meet the challenge with their passion and hardwork. There is something so charming about their DIY cardboard props — at first glance, we did mistake that flimsy laptop for the real deal.

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Higher School Musical will be opening tonight at the Aerial UTS Function Centre in Building 10. It’ll only be here for four nights so grab your tickets here! Though COVID-19 restrictions are gradually lifting, the Revue will only be seating 100 audience members per night. Worry not if you are unable to attend in-person! Friday night’s performance will be livestreamed for people to watch remotely for only $10.

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UTS Main Revue will be running auditions for their 2021 show on the 7th and 9th of December. More information can be found here.

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UTS Main Revue will be running auditions for their 2021 show on the 7th and 9th of December. More information can be found [here] <https://www.facebook.com/events/394429368363159/>

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Content Warning: Mental Illness, Drug Use, Violence, Self-Harm, Indigenous Cultural Appropriation, Demonic Rituals

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Everyone in Australia knows how formidable the bush can be. And even if you have never stepped foot in it, you would have read about it. It’s imposing, suffocating like a bone-white hand around your throat, and your chances of making it out diminish with every passing second.

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For a group of high school girls, it seems that the bush was the real villain behind their disappearance in Tasmania’s bluffs. But what about the Hungry Man? The one that watches, and chases, abducting girls to never be seen again, only leaving their shoes behind, their laces tied in pretty, neat bows.

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The Bluffs pulls you along, sending you deeper into the bush, into the mystery about the disappearance of Jasmine, Cierra, Bree, and Georgia. With every chapter, and new revelation you feel that familiar urgency and unease – the kind you sense when you’ve strayed off the path. There is something more sinister lurking behind Perry’s words. Hidden meanings that are brought to the surface, he shines a torch on their true nature, a sometimes unpleasant nature – mental illness, the dark side of the internet, small town corruption and politics, appropriation of Australian Indigenous culture, and how a warped view of reality can shatter relationships and people.

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With a good serving of suggested supernatural phenomenon, Perry has taken us off the beaten track of the classic thriller and shoved us into an uncomfortable confrontation with our own powerlessness – especially with the punch that’s delivered at the very end.

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There are some trigger warnings that readers should be wary of such as mentions of PTSD, drug use, violence, self-harm, and demonic rituals. This book is not just gritty but wears the filth like a badge of honour. I highly recommend you throw caution over a cliff and trust that this book has a little bit of everything. Just don’t get too lost or the Hungry Man will get you…

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Short story anthologies can be hard to read. The 2020 UTS Writers’ Anthology Empty Sky is not. Despite these stories being written in 2019, before this apocalyptic present known as 2020, each piece has cultivated its own relevance and importance due to both the talent of all the authors involved and the team behind the curation of a notably cohesive collection. More importantly, it also provides a form of escape, the way a good book should.

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Each story throughout the anthology provides a separate, but distinct process of discovery. Discovery of loss, discovery of hearing, discovery of bad love, good love, robot love, Helen Garner love. And for the reader, there is an added process of discovery – discovery of form. Empty Sky is composed of scripts, non-fiction, personal essays, and the expected short story. Everywhere you look, a new idea emerges, distinguished and wholly developed.

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I have some recommendations on how best to read this anthology. Anthologies are made to be enjoyed messily;

• Turn to a random page and indulge

• Re-read with vigour

• Draw your own themes (preferably with red thread and a corkboard)

• Use the author bios to meet each one individually and with care

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You can find the anthology here.

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Content Warning: Discrimination

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If there was ever confusion on how to break boundaries, shatter language, and rend the hearts of readers, Nayyirah Waheed is here to make it look effortless.

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Having risen to fame as an Instagram poet, Nayyirah Waheed is a poet of muscular talent. Her debut collection is over a hundred pages of poetic minimalism exemplifying why brevity is the soul of wit — and why diverse voices are more urgent than ever. The title, salt. is as laconic and visual as the collection itself. Her poems are all of a unified style and thematic arsenal; each poem expands on the last, spins more out of her elemental motifs. Fire, water, stars, and salt may never read the same again. Nayyirah weaves these motivic threads into laments for children stolen from a colonised land, reckoning with their colonised skin and colonised language. Trauma pervades the book, and in it the vow that the inherited pain must end with you. 

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Although published in 2013, this rallying cry is beyond timely for 2020. As Dickinson wrote, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” Nayyirah is the slant truth of the Black Lives Matter generation, a command to do our soul-wrenching “salt work”, and end the pain with us. One need not have lived experience to resonate with hers. Her purview covers the cross-sections of gender, race, sexuality, and heritage in a way that is playful, intelligent, visceral, and devastating. Indulge her a few pages, and she’ll rattle your soul. It’s a pithy read, knocked out in the space of an evening, but poetry is often a hard sell for most because its power lies in the speaking. It is not meant to be merely read; hers is the sort of poetry the eye can gloss over. If you have the courage (or the quiet space), read her work aloud, and see if her writing doesn’t come alive like music.

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Content Warning: Domestic violence, violence, and suicide

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There are very few books out there that can cause the reader so much anguish that it is almost painful to keep reading. But you must keep reading. You have to know their stories, their voices, and their hopes. Of course, I am referring to the five women living at the women’s refuge in Widringham, that Keeper revolves around. Moor plunges us into the ice, ink waters of their past, each holding a new insight into the goings-on in a domestic violence relationship. Every woman and scenario are different, struggling with similar feelings, yet their experiences vary. The message is clear – no two domestic violence stories are an exact replica, able to be packaged nicely in a textbook. Moor exposes the reader to the truths of domestic violence and the inner thoughts of survivors.  But throughout the book is the voice and perspective of the sole male character, DS Witworth. The experience of flipping through these pages is like a blowtorch to the soul – it’s not a welcoming warmth, but rather an inferno.

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At the centre of the story is Katie Straw, a woman who has her own monsters lurking in the shadows, some of which may have caught up with her when the police find her body. Everyone believes she jumped off the local bridge, drowning, a suicide, but not everyone is convinced. Anomalies crop up in the case, the main one being that Katie Straw isn’t who she was presumed to be. DS Witworth and his new partner DC Brookes are called forth to investigate Katie’s death, leading them to her workplace – the Widringham women’s refuge. Although the focus of the investigation is on Katie, we are just as invested in the stories of the characters at the refuge and DS Witworth, the detective trying to solve it.

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The ghost-like appearance of sexist and judgemental thoughts that float to the surface of Witworth’s inner monologue is subverted, but enough to rip a hole open in the story, to grate against the perspective of the six women (Katie included). The contrast is driven deeper as each of the six women privately divulge their past to us, spreading their hearts like butter on bread. The situations are revealed with trepidation, in jagged details, appearing and then vanishing when Moor interrupts their flow of thoughts with reality. The power of perspective, judgement, and empathy, are played off one another by sparring the thoughts of Witworth against the voice of Val Redwood, the owner of the refuge, the five women that live there, and the parallel story of Katie’s past leading up to the present time of her potential murder investigation.

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The writing has a natural flow that simulates a stream of consciousnesses, engaging the reader with the character’s emotions. It builds gradually and leads us by the hand through the fire of domestic violence. The writing often mirrors the thought patterns of the women, especially the jumbled chaotic yet biting thoughts of Jenny, one of the women at the refuge. She is the only character wherein the narration moves to the first person, creating the effect that Jenny is breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly. A device used by Moor in sparing moments to drag us through the truth, emploring us to understand and unravel the truth of this reality for ourselves.

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Keeper almost feels biographical, it’s a political statement without suggesting a solution – there is no easy solution. As I was coming up on the end of the book, I began to get restless, flicking the pages, churning the words. It was the first time I had sat the with it for so long. I held my breath and then the ending came and my heart wrenched from my chest and flung itself into my stomach. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but it is hauntingly devastating because, upon reflection, it all makes an awful lot of sense.

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There is so much that needs to be said, both within the pages and off it, in our very lives, about domestic violence, sexism in its subtlest and not-so-subtle forms, and trauma. Moor has crafted a story, a gritty work of fiction that is in no way fictionalised. The fact that Moor’s Keeper is a truth that needs to be acknowledged in our reality is the very reason I was only able to consume a chapter or two in one sitting – this is an issue that is screaming for change, and yet just like in Keeper, the reality of it is that it remains a reality and never purely a work of fiction.

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I edged closer and saw the man was talking to a pale-yellow bird with peachy cheeks – […] Having second thoughts about the dragster, I turned to leave. Then he sang, ‘If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake, howdy-doo, howdy-doo, howdy-doo.’

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Bernard Gallate’s debut novel, The Origin of Me, may be fifteen-year- old Lincoln Locke’s coming-of-age story, but any adult can engage with what lies beneath its surface.

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Whenever I followed Lincoln into the classrooms of Sydney’s Crestfield Academy, the new school he’s made to attend after his parent’s messy separation, Gallate’s writing had me checking over my shoulder. The novel didn’t necessarily transport me back to my high school days, because Crestfield is not your typical school. It’s exclusive and made of money, with a grading system and surveillance that had me scrutinising Sydney’s class inequality. There is a universality to the way Gallate has created the atmosphere of the school — one that makes you feel like your actions are spotlighted (an experience that’s heightened in the novel by teenage insecurity).

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This discomfort and alertness to threat is only heightened by Lincoln’s particular peculiarity — ‘the nub’, a growth on Lincoln’s lower back that becomes more bulbous by the day. The fear of exposure oozes off the pages, quickening my heart. Will he be exposed and what are the consequences that will surely follow? The constant pressure placed by Gallate and Lincoln on the nub, makes me eager to learn exactly what it is and what it will become. The tension builds as the nub grows, problems arising when Lincoln tries to conceal it. This oddity, although seemingly out of place within a typical teenager’s life, becomes intrinsic to the plot and something on everyone ‘s mind: the reader’s, and Lincoln’s. Through this device, Gallate explores the theme of not just alienation, but acceptance. We don’t often like what we see in the mirror — common in adolescence. Gallate hasn’t added this predicament to his character for no reason; the need for Lincoln to accept the nub, and thus himself, draws the reader further in. The fear that Lincoln experiences over the nub drives him to make difficult decisions. Some I cheered for while others I wish he could undo. I found myself almost shaking the book at points – evidence of good writing, the kind that gets you frustrated at a fictional character. The novel encapsulates the struggles of acceptance, and I sympathised with Lincoln’s inner turmoil, yet laughed at the dry humour that lightened this quirky, slice of life text.

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The Origin of Me is a transformative novel, interweaving intertextuality. Within the pages of Gallate’s novel, he’s crafted another fictional text which Lincoln takes a shining to: My One Redeeming Affliction by Edwin Stroud. At first, it was a bit jarring to find myself reading two books. What made it captivating and seamless was how the fictional events in Edwin Stroud’s book began to bleed into Lincoln’s life. I found that Gallate had more in store for me than I first imagined. Finding ourselves and achieving self-love is one of the many avenues explored in the novel. Lessons in fiction can open us up and provide us with information about ourselves we never knew we needed, much like my friend Lincoln learnt. In these modern times the lesson that The Origin of Me presents is crucial to read. The ability to selectively portray ourselves online as ‘perfect’ can be detrimental to accepting ourselves as we truly are.

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Bernard Gallate has crafted a novel that holds many ideas, plot points, and a huge cast of characters together, which at times can be a bit confusing, (thankfully there’s a helpful ‘Cast of Characters’ list at the beginning). The dry writing style leaves every word exposed, within its pages. The wry commentary, paired with visually evocative imagery, was enough to make me laugh and my chests warm with anticipation for the next page. It certainly is a balancing act to keep everything afloat, but Gallate has traversed this tightrope and made it to the other side with aplomb. I hope to read many more novels like The Origin of Me in the future.

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When Chanel Miller was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner in 2015, she was told that the crime had occurred under ‘the perfect circumstances.’ It’s hard to believe that any case of rape – let alone, one that occurs while the victim is lying unconscious behind a dumpster – could ever be called anything other than horrific and inhumane. Yet, for Miller, an almost once in a lifetime opportunity presented itself. Miller was not only in the small percentage of survivors who actually report their experiences but in the even smaller percent, who had a witness (in this case, two) to back up their statement.

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According to Miller, pressing charges was something she “couldn’t not do.” The case ignited global debate and triggered a cultural shift that predated the now famous #MeToo movement (although the creator of the movement, Tarana Burke, originally coined the term in 2006, for women of colour who were victims of sexual violence). The California legislature now requires state prison terms for rapists whose victims were unconscious and includes digital penetration in the definition of rape. Further, the judge responsible for Brock Turner’s short six-month sentence, Aaron Persky, was fired after immense public backlash.

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“It’s not luck but it’s more than most victims get,” Miller says to the audience at this year’s All About Women Festival on March 8. She’s there to talk about her best-selling memoir, Know My Name. The memoir was released in September 2019 to widespread acclaim that identified her as the anonymous Emily Doe of the highly public People v Turner (2015) criminal case. Know My Name intentionally embeds the assault into a greater story; “I am this full spectrum of experiences and you can’t deny that.”

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Thanks to host Dr Edwina Throsby, Sydney Opera House’s head of Talks and Ideas, before anything else, we find out that Chanel Miller is a writer, illustrator, and stand-up comedian – it’s also abundantly clear that she is a young woman hell-bent on changing the world. However, since retiring her better-known alias, she’s been reduced to introductions that centre on what happened to her rather than who she is. It’s unfortunate yet understandable because as Emily Doe, Miller went viral. Her 7,137-word-long victim impact statement, released on Buzzfeed, left no one untouched. Women around the world cried simultaneously. The anger, disappointment, and exhaustion laced in her words were all too familiar. Little did we know that we’d soon endure more grief together, when her assailant’s already light sentence was reduced down to an unacceptable three months.

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To see and hear Miller speak at the All About Women Festival on International Women’s Day is to witness a more self-assured yet equally as impassioned woman. She’s warm and humorous, somehow not taking herself too seriously despite the very serious nature of her experience and the conversation that surrounds it. Her beautifully articulated reflections are considerate and thoughtful. Miller’s very presence at the festival feels hopeful because it’s proof that after a tragedy, victims can not only survive but rebuild their way to happiness.

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Understandably, the case still brings up a lot of raw emotions. It’s difficult to believe she can even discuss it with such composure given how recently everything unfolded. Miller wells up when recalling sitting in court with only a few supporters on her side – her family and friends were considered witnesses and banned from entering the court – as her assailant’s side remained consistently full. Here, she looks out at an almost sold-out theatre, filled with strangers from across the globe who feel bonded to her in one way or another. It’s a moving reminder of how far she’s come and as an audience, all we can do is hope she can feel our collective gratitude and admiration.

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“The only reason I’m here now is because people refused to give up on me,” Miller says. Even under an alias, the weight of scrutiny placed on her was almost unbearable. She puts it poignantly, “Trauma is what happens when you’re put into a world where you no longer understand the rules.” Like many women, Miller was a first-hand witness to how powerful institutions like the criminal justice system are committed to maintaining rape culture. The legal system is lengthy, puts victims through arduous questioning and can involve invasive medical examinations, and yet still, many rapists are never convicted. Some perpetrators even go on to attain positions of power. Their potential is deemed more important than the victim’s; the damage caused by assault is underestimated and isolated. It’s a devastating realisation that lingered with Miller far beyond the final verdict.

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“He [belonged] to greater institutions and programs. […] It was not implied that I belonged to a family or a life that I had been extracted from.”

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When asked about some of the biggest ways the trial changed her, it was a remark about her freedom to live spontaneously that surprised me most. It’s that need to second guess your every movement in case you’re made responsible for someone else doing something unlawful to you that becomes ten times more real when you’re violated. For example, Miller shared that before the trial, she would enjoy skinny dipping at night with friends. Now, she’d be too hesitant, explaining that if something happened to her, she wouldn’t be able to justify being naked in public at night to officers and defence lawyers who would use her decision against her. Similarly, when purchasing alcohol, Miller anxiously commits the brand name and her drinking time to memory, should something happen while she was under the influence and she’d need to defend herself.

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Victim blaming is essential to rape culture. There are measures put in place to silence and invalidate victims from the minute they file a report, which is exactly why the statistics show that so many instances are never reported to the authorities. “They didn’t have to convince the jury [I was lying], [they] just had to turn me against me.” There were times when Miller felt guilty for giving her team “nothing”, as her memory prevented her from recalling the specific details. Miller wasn’t even aware of what happened to her when she was dispatched from the hospital until a media headline informed her that she was left “half-naked on the ground behind a dumpster, and fingered.”

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Her statements would be consistently rejected in court with a simple, “Objection! She has no memory.” It pained her then but now she laughs about it, “I’m about to drop 400 pages of memory on you!” Her 400 pages of memory have been overwhelmingly applauded. Dr Throsby points out that surprisingly, it’s a book that features the absence of shame, rejecting the typical “it’s your fault” narrative. In Miller’s perspective, that’s the most important takeaway of her story. Know My Name serves as a call to action which begs victims to put their shame to bed. As soon as she identified what was going on, she could squash it. “We’ve all been sent to our little corners of self-punishment. Who put us there?”

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Sitting on the stage of the Sydney Opera House only four years after the trial ended, she vows to never again wait for external validation. Whether that be in response to her hobbies like drawing, or the unanimous response of a jury finding her assailant guilty. She had been holding her breath to receive validation for something she had already wholeheartedly known but was made to forget. “Why did I spend a year and a half hating myself?”

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Trusting her intuition and refusing to be silenced is non-negotiable. “Was pressing charges worth it?” an audience member asks. She hesitates, she wants her advice to be hopeful but despite the pedestal we’ve put her on, there are decisions that she can’t make for us. But she leaves us with this, “I want it to be worth it. I want us to not have to fight for our own humanity.”

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As I finally reach the top of the queue for her book signing, a newly purchased copy of Know My Name in my hands, I smile and introduce myself. She smiles back at me and we chat. We chat about the case, her talk, and how much Ice Cream she’s eaten since she landed in Sydney. Together we laugh. She thanks me for my praises, and gushes over my name. I feel like I know her personally, even if I don’t.

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“Is it okay if I hug you?” I ask. She smiles and nods, “Of course.” It’s the least I can do, and I hope with it, she hears the things that go unsaid.

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*If you or someone you know is experiencing, or has experienced sexual abuse, you can call or refer the person to the following confidential hotlines.
General: 1800 737 732
Counselling: 1800 211 028
Crisis Centre: 1800 424 017

The post Chanel Miller on Putting the Shame to Bed appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

As I entered Broadway Shopping Centre and spotted the rainbow arch welcoming customers up the escalator, I’m hit by the fact that Mardi Gras has been in full-swing since Valentine’s Day and will continue until the 1^st of March. I wasn’t here to shop, mind you, I was here to attend the centre’s latest event dedicated to Mardi Gras, Express Yassself.  Broadway at Broadway, which promised to be a musically pleasant experience. 

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Broadway at Broadway, one of three shows in the lineup for Express Yassself’s overall event, is a mini-concert of show-tunes and other musical numbers. This show makes up a small part of a variety of shows put on by Broadway. Originally, I aimed to attend one of the other events on offer by Broadway Shopping Centre ‘Bingay Bingo’ which as the name suggests, is bingo with a Mardi Gras twist. The event’s other choice of entertainment was ‘Mega Drag’ a drag queen performance. I opted for the third option on offer, Broadway at Broadway, and thus, found myself sitting on a glowing box-seat beneath the stage. The stage’s backdrop was framed by a multitude of rainbow hearts, arranged into one giant heart (oh and the pink streamers, can’t forget those!).  

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Upon arrival at any of the three events, the location might seem to be an odd choice: the food court, just outside H&M. I admit it took me a little to settle in, especially after mistaking a man sitting next to the stage on his laptop as the ticketer — spoiler alert, he was just trying to enjoy a burger. Once the show got underway, a little later than advertised, the audience was introduced to its elegant, sequined hostess for the night. The chatter of the food court was blanketed by the expressive voice of Debora Krizak, the hostess, singing ‘Rain On My Parade’ from Funny Girl. The energy lifted. The event began to feel like live music on a night out. The added improvisation to entertain the children in the front row helped to bring the audience’s laughter into the musical accompaniment. Although the next song wasn’t known in advance, by the audience or Ms. Cryzack, the mood of the night was set. This was a performance without expectations or worries. Ease back into your chair, ignore the clattering of dishes and simply enjoy.

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With the atmosphere in place and the food court goers listening attentively, the second performer was welcomed to the mic. Noah Mullins, has a clear voice that resonates through the centre. There wasn’t any announcement as to which song he was singing and from where, so the next few pieces took on a game-like quality, where the audience was quietly guessing what was happening. Rather helpfully, Mr. Mullins acts out the songs, embodying the character and offering the audience a charming voice that warms the ears and provokes the imagination; it’s a treat to decipher just what his character feels and experiences through the song.

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The next performer, all the way from London, is Josie Lane: a strong voice that boomed and soothed, with a peppering of cheek to lighten the sound. Sitting there, as my seat glowed and switched to a neon green, it felt as if Josie Lane was taking us on a journey. Josie told the song’s story through playful winks and dancing, working the stage like she was reading us a book. Pure energy, a performer who was having fun with her audience.Once again, the song titles were lost on me, but that didn’t stop all of us from appreciating the voices behind the mysterious words.

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Broadway at Broadway was only a taste of the Express Yassself event. It officially ends on the 27^th of February — and don’t worry for all you broke Uni students, tickets are free (or you could just “happen” to be in the food court around six to six-thirty at night). I would, however, recommend spending the two minutes to get a free ticket, because if you show it to the service desk on level two (not the guy with the laptop eating his post-work dinner), then you get a gift card for the centre! Not half bad, I’d say!

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All in all, this event is for anyone. You don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of showtunes (I certainly didn’t) because there’s no pressure on the audience or the performers to present themselves as nothing more than comfortable and fun. Simply put, sit back and embrace the rainbow.

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Photography: Karishama Singh | @karishamasingh

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Described by i-D as ‘the voice of a generation’, Steve Lacy is the Grammy-winning, multi-instrumentalist, and producer of The Internet. His recent solo album, Apollo XXI is an introspective, yet playful exploration of love, identity, and sexuality. Steve Lacy took the Grammy-nominated album on an energy-filled world tour, with Australia and New Zealand being the final leg of the trip. Karishama and I were lucky enough to see him perform at the Metro Theatre on Saturday 15th February.

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Walking in, we saw signs with Microsoft-Office-style word art that told us phones were not allowed, since Steve wanted to see our faces. And this was actually enforced, with security guards shining flashlights on the poor suckers that decided they would try their luck regardless. The crowd was large for opening DJ Bapari, who looked absolutely in her element as she played song after song, with a few almost bored glances at the crowd.

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Following Bapari’s warming up of the crowd, Steve Lacy strode out onto the stage to a chorus of cheers. Wearing a terracotta-coloured two piece set – like pyjamas, but make it fashion – he was met with deafening applause. Armed with nothing but a synth, a rotation of guitars, and the DJ backing of the effortlessly cool Bapari, he launched into song by playing the smooth opening track of Apollo XXI, ‘Only If’, executing the soaring vocals with ease. He transitioned smoothly into a higher tempo with ‘Like Me’, a celebration of his own sexual fluidity, and a song made in an effort to relate to other queer people.

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After ‘Playground’, he admitted that the show was his third in a row, and that he was “hammered”, but the crowd itself was giving him energy – and what an energetic show it was. ‘Basement Jack’ was performed with a whole lot of groove, and Steve’s sensual performance of ‘Lay Me Down’ slowed everything down.

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At some point, well into the set, Steve stopped singing and playing guitar, and turned to the synth on his right, and began producing an avant-garde, ET-like melody. The lights accentuated the music by producing a futuristic, strobe effect. The experience culminated with Steve returning to the microphone and nonchalantly announcing, “I just abducted all of you”. Safe to say, no one was mad at that.

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He sang other Apollo XXI tracks such as ‘Hate CD’, ‘In Love We Trust’, and ‘Love 2 Fast’, while playing the guitar with incredible skill. He left the stage while instrumental guitar-violin track ‘Amandla’s Interlude’ played on the sound system to a completely blacked out stage. The anticipation was immense, until he returned to the stage wearing an iridescent orange dress apron and sparkling dangly earrings, which was met with wolf-whistles from the crowd.

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He prefaced the outfit change by stating that he is his own stylist, and with a sweet anecdote about his mother. He shared with the crowd that in regards to his style, his mother always said “if you like it, I love it”, and he encouraged everyone to wear whatever they wanted since “love starts with you”. He followed this up by playing single ‘N Side’, the lyrics of which were sung back to him by almost everyone in the room. He then played ‘Outro Freestyle/4ever’, in which he took a moment to genre-bend and flex his rapping skills. He played a few of his classic, pre-album tracks such as ‘C U Girl’, ‘Ryd’, and ‘Some’. He began to sing the first few bars of ‘Dark Red’, before stopping abruptly and announcing it was his last song.

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Steve and Bapari left the stage after ‘Dark Red’, to a round of applause and shouts for an encore. When he finally returned to the stage, he let us know that he “hated fake encores”. Having not prepared anything for an encore, he began to play over the sound system one of his new songs that hadn’t been released yet. The entire crowd seemed to move in unison with him as he danced on stage to his own song. The song in question was different to his usual style, it had a trap feel to it, with heavy drums and rap vocals.

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Steve Lacy’s gig was like a party where you don’t really know many people, but everyone is super friendly and makes you feel welcome. The emphasis on the connection between Steve and the crowd really made it a worthwhile gig, as having no phones allowed meant that everyone was truly present and able to appreciate the performance. Steve’s performance was peppered with little anecdotes and odd moments, such as him drinking a whole bottle of water to a ridiculous amount of applause. These moments allowed us to truly connect as an audience with him, and helped his personality shine through the facade that performers often adopt on stage. Steve Lacy’s gig was one of the best I’ve been to in a while, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

The post Steve Lacy | Review appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Visuals: Amy Toma | @amyytoma

So it’s a day away from the pinnacle of the holiday season and you haven’t gotten your sister’s partner, or your great-aunt, or your second cousin a gift yet.

However, you don’t want to buy any further into the capitalist mess that is the holiday season’s celebration of mass-consumerism and you think to yourself, 

“What can I gift my grandma that won’t break the bank, nor create too much of a carbon footprint?”

This is where we come in, with a handy little guide for last-minute gift-giving ideas for the non-consumer.

Happy silly season everyone!

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