Concert Review: Alfie Templeman Is An Existential King

When you meet, as you will hear in our interview, it is like meeting sunshine. He is exuberant, which is why I am unsurprised his performance was the human embodiment of a bubble machine. He just made you feel the biggest kid, which is how I want to remember myself. If you saw PEN15 review, then you know, I see kinds like tiny adults, and adults like big kids, in part, because growing up is about transferring experiences into understanding. Alfie Templeman has a lot of understanding.

He approaches the stage with a joy that, again, is like a child’s toy. He might as well have had sprinkler and birthday cake, in hand, to make the night an official party. Perhaps because I had just interviewed him, I understood his songs may sound like joy riding a unicorn through a rainbow field, but, in truth, they are playfully existential like, him. He banters with his crowd with a kinship of someone that knows he cannot be the only one who sees this world as an abyss worth swimming. In this sense, he is one of the most exciting artists on the rise. 

I put in my recent reviews how the concert world is a tricky thing right now. People are hyper-sensitive and are not sure what they want. They know they do not want the “old, depressing pop,” but they are not sure a bunch of rhythms and verses that sound and feel like confetti and sprinkles is going to put them in an even bigger, bad mood. What makes Alfie and his performance style magical can be divided into two things: his ability to show that questioning the purpose living does not mean you cannot enjoy being alive, and even though happy people get sad, they sure know how to embrace joy.