Frankie Cosmos at UMS 2018
I have this thing where I get unnecessarily nervous around ‘famous people’ and musicians I like. A normally confident woman, I turn into a plebian unworthy of the attention of those ranked so highly in society. These scenarios usually occur at concerts or record-signings and usually entail me spitting out word vomit like it’s my job. Sometimes, I cannot even conjure up the courage to say hello.
Unfortunately, this story goes more like that. In fact, it’s pretty uneventful. It was raining, and tickets were sold out so I had to go this one solo. My first show attending alone, I was already uneasy on the first night of the Underground Music Showcase in Denver last month. I entered the Goodwill parking lot during the act just before Frankie Cosmos and headed toward the front to check them out, finding a place right behind Greta Kline and her band (AKA The Frankie Cosmos… the band I came to see and who I adore). Let’s blame it on bad timing because right as I noticed it was them, the current act ended, and my would-have-been best friends left for back stage. Add it to a list of #regrets.
After grieving my missed opportunity, I got a drink and wandered around the sponsor tents before finding my place up front for the main act. I landed an awesome spot on the right side, against the gates, next to my new friend, Dean, the security guard. In the 10 minutes before the show started, I managed to find out that Dean had just moved to Colorado from Oklahoma where his 2-year-old son still lives with his ex-wife after a messy divorce. How I managed to find all that out in 10 minutes and not approach a sort-of famous indie band is beyond me.
ANYWHO.
Now that we understand my anxiety solely revolving around people I deem cooler than me. Let’s get to the ¡muuusicaaa!
I saw the band perform their 2018 record, Vessel, in Boulder a few months ago. I looked onto the mosh pit from a higher vantage point, jazzed by how much fun everyone was having at the front of a Frankie Cosmos show. The band has a knack for turning up their mostly-mellow tunes for live performances and that is something made particularly clear from against the gates. Even my friend Dean who admitted his skepticism when I told him the band performing was an indie-pop sort of thing, came back halfway through the show holding a plate of fries and mouthed to me, “they’re pretty good!”
Despite everyone in the crowd, including the security guards and photographers, rocking out, Greta, a girl to my own heart, couldn’t hide her body language as comning off as embarrassed and anxious and nervous. During a crowd favorite, “Outside With The Cuties”, she had her eyes shut tightly, even tucking imaginary hair behind her ear (she recently shaved her head but still possesses the nervous tick – phantom hair tucking). After inapparently messing up her first song, she laughed anxiously at the crowd, “I really don’t know why I’m so nervous…” Damn… I should’ve said hi before the show (that would have taken the edge off, right?). And later when she fumbled some joke about how the crowd smelled like “marijuana” and that she “doesn’t do drugs” but “thinks it’s cool if you do”. Her awkwardness made me feel a bit better about my awkwardness, allowing me to fully enjoy the show in my awkwardly alone state.
It’s at their live shows that I remember to appreciate the Frankie Cosmos’s ability to incorporate rock, alt, and electro elements into their pop songs, giving them worlds of depth. Something she may have learned in her previous endeavors with the band, Porches, who also masters multi-genre production so well. In the performance of “Duet”, you get to fully embrace the awesome, eerie bridge for its juxtaposition to the rest of the song which starts as a falsetto love ballad: “you’ve got nice eeeeyes / they’re very blueee / that is whyyyy / I look at youuu”. Or when they jam to “Jesse”, a clear favorite since releasing it as a single in January 2018. Greta finally bobbing and swaying with the crowd, enjoying herself, even if her eyes are still closed.
What's That Smell? 