10/22/2023 - JULIE, BLIMP @ CLUB CONGRESS

Hello, everyone. Starting now, I'll be posting weekly on Fridays, switching off between show posts and interviews with artists (some international and some local) for my IN PASSING series (last issue here). I'm very excited to cover this show, though. While this was a touring band, I still wanted to be there and cover it being that Julie are quite the up and coming post-grunge captains. It was also impossible to miss the kickoff to their sold out tour. If you don't want to hear me ramble about my own experiences and just get to the fucking bands already, they're big and bolded so you can scroll there. As always, send any music stuff, shows, whatever to [ fosterhildingmusic@gmail.com ] or DM me on Instagram.

photos stolen from bands' accounts and courtesy of Brighton.

I woke up believing that Tucson was about two hours away from Flagstaff, maybe three since I knew it was south of Phoenix, but I had no idea how naïve I truly was--thus began the four and a half hour long drive to Club Congress accompanied by Toothache and tokillafly members, filled with unquotable jabs and jokes as we slid down the belly of Arizona's infamous summer.

The line in wrapped around the building almost twice--I pointed out the Have a Nice Life, Narrow Head, Whirr, and etc. shirts as we passed to the very end. We were in the right place. We even pointed out a Monette shirt floating in the sea of black t-shirted and pull over-ed teens that turned out to belong to Will from Blimp. We snaked into the building, running back to my car for things and forgetting other things and doing it again until the line had shrunk and we pushed in and were pressed against the walls and stage with sweaty fervor.

Blimp opened the floodgates of noise into the night with a cracking, massive homage to slowcore, shoegaze, grunge, and the little nuances in-between that we always to overlook. Still, Blimp made each of them impossible to look away from--a train wreck of noise-infused soundscapes made supreme with Will's Corgan-esque vocals and Ren's ear-splitting, feedback-ripped solos--an awkward sound made manifest and comfortable in the echoes of influences past.

Chobi's vocal lines were delicate and far between, beautiful in both their rarity and extreme oppositon to the crushing weight of her bass as it outlined Lucas's winding, blowfish drums. Each song was subtle in its complexity, sneaking mathy passages and strange timings into blasting, euphoric bouts of noise pushed to its boiling point. If anything, Blimp was an experience unlike anything else, and proved to be one of the most engaging and versatile live performances I have ever seen. Cellophane curled everyone's faces and bodies to their rhythm, its whining and noisy leads leaving a distorted curse on the audience, and Farmer blew my brains across the venue's hard, sweat-lined floor. Stream Egg.

We were already pressed up against the walls, pillars, and doors of the building (not to mention the bodies). None of us dared even move--if so we would never find our way back in. The fire exit opened a few times (during which set, I can't remember) and employees at Club Congress had to stand nearby and hold it closed. We pushed and shoved our selfish way through to the front as Julie started.

Julie was larger than life. Keyan's rig alone took up the stage's horizon like an endless forest of black speaker mesh. Yet, it didn't go unwarranted. As the blast doors flew off their hinges with the first drop of Lochness, so did the air in the room. Every pore of every face pounded with the glowing pulse of distortion force fed by three stacks surrounding them. Alex's bass was no quieter, forcing its way to the underbelly of the building and making its home in the hundreds of overflowing chests of their audience. While I had not truly considered them shoegaze before, they were, by the most basic definition of the term, shoegazers--juggling the weight of the world between amps, splitters, and distortions.

Dillon's hands were unwavering against the crushing feedback from behind him, zipping around his minimalistic kit with security and focus, being the only grounding for the chunky riffs made unruly by their own weight--his cracking snare our only anchor in the sea of bodies, on which he played quickly and masterfully. Alex and Keyan's soft vocals floated above their noise with both passion and fragility, spawning the perfect dichotomy that is Julie--an exploration of heavier-than-life riffs against the poetic, sweet, and green yearnings of the contemporary young adult. Basking in the washes of their distortion up close was the antidote to life's anguishes. Stream Catalogue.

The drive back was long and dark, though our minds electric and running faster than our car could catch up to. My ears rang for days and eventually my tour shirt got a salsa stain on it. It was one of my favorite memories from last year.

I know this was quite a while ago now. You all are going to see a lot of old shows on here for a little bit until I catch up on this backlog. For now, though, keep going to shows, listening to music, finding people and music and things that you love and sharing them. Thank you for reading.

-Foster

Continuing Dead Mothers Collective's live series, check out tokillafly's new video on Youtube.

See Blimp at The Echo on March 4th. Buy tickets here.