Live review: International showgirl Mykki Blanco delivered an unforgettable set at Fairmount Theatre

Mykki Blanco
Fairmount Theatre
May 27, 2016

Genius rapper, international showgirl, and neo-riot grrrl Mykki Blanco headlined a fantastic show Friday night at the Fairmount Theatre. Blanco (Michael David Quattlebaum Jr) is promoting the forthcoming album Mykki, and recently released the haunting, heartrending video for a track from that album entitled “High School Never Ends.” I fell in love with Blanco’s industrial sound and punk sensibility back around 2012, after the release of the video for “Join My Militia,” off Mykki’s first EP Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels. But Blanco is constantly evolving, shifting, creating new kinds of music and attracting new kinds of fans.

Local DJs Gayance and River Lance apparently started the night off right: when I arrived (early, I thought) all sorts of people were already there, dancing up near the stage as “Big Pimpin’” echoed through the club. The crowd was notably diverse but also consistently arty, fun, friendly, and stylish – honestly just a breath of fresh air compared to some concert crowds.

A lot of folks were there to see Doldrums, Airick Woodhead’s Montreal-based band. Doldrums’ album The Air Conditioned Nightmare (also the name of a 1945 Henry Miller novel) was released through Sub Pop last year. The band put on a short set of incredibly danceable songs that seemed to fuse old-school British and German industrial noise with slightly hallucinogenic electronic pop, especially in the track “Hotfoot.”

After that Bambii, a DJ from Toronto also styled as Yung Bambii (Kirsten Azan), took the stage. She accompanied Mykki but first delivered her own set of fresh mixes, using new Rihanna and Beyoncé to further enliven an already amped crowd. Yung Bambii’s back in Montreal on 3 June, spinning at Backlash 01.

Mykki Blanco came onstage singing along to “Formation,” then transitioned into “I Wanna Be Loved by You.” Mykki knows the divas, and knows how to work them. I’d seen Blanco perform in 2012 at the Royal Phoenix and the sheer performance energy was amazing. What was already amazing has now become astounding, with Blanco delivering pithy assessments (“The future is stupid,” “Fuck doing yoga,”) and advice (“Have enough self-respect to take care of yourself; don’t be like me – or be like me and make lots of mistakes and still come out on top,”) while simultaneously dancing on the bar or swinging from the rafters. One of the most charming moments was when Mykki decided to rap in the middle of a circle on the floor; while waiting for the (very excited but also slightly uncertain) crowd to do as they were told while Blanco repeatedly called out, “I love you, MAKE A FUCKING CIRCLE!”

Neither the venue nor the crowd was tiny. And yet there was a totally intimate, even communitarian, feeling that night. A few songs before the performance ended Blanco took off the wig, and the night finished up with an onstage dance party.