Concert Review: Alex The Astronaut Soars & Land on Mercury

It is always os funny to enter a show, and, immediately, get an aesthetic. Beanies, over-sized fuzzy sweaters, and vintage totes with the image of some old cartoon or classic band perused the Mercury crowd as they waited for Alex The Astronaut. In some ways, this was the “fashion” of people that, like Alex, felt parts of them were from some other time and place. Everything they wore and did, from sipping their IPAs to holding sporadic conversations on work and socialism, felt like a play by play of the endless, colorful search for who we are, which is why Alex The Astronaut’s music landed on them like Neil Armstrong on the moon. 

In truth, where you have songs titled “Octopus” and “Happy Song,” it’s hard not feel like you are the soundtrack for Adventure Time or Rick & Morty. In some ways, Alex’s music felt exactly like that: an existential cartoon using sonic shapes and colors to help us through philosophical dooms. It is, honestly, a mastery because she strings her guitar and voice as if they are bound to tiny red balloons, floating into the sky where we will never know if they ended in the sun. Yet, that is the question of life: how much do we float up until we feel burnt out. 

Mercury Lounge’s early shows always fascinate me because they get the “after-work crowd;” the people who widdle at a sushi bar or brief happy hours before catching some tunes and calling it an early Tuesday. I love that crowd because they are trying to add a “show” to weekdays where most people wait for a weekend. I mention this because Alex The Astronaut is a perfect “weekday” artist. Her good humor, energy, and introspection matches the daily frequency most of us live on in wishing life was more of an adventure, and genuinely trying to make it so, even if it means seeing a concert on a weekday.