Concert Review: Mondo Cozmo Gives His Best Show Yet At Bowery Ballroom

I have reviewed Mondo Cozmo a few times, and he never fails to amaze, but, more importantly he never fails to grow. His debut album, Plastic Soul, is one of my faves of the year, and I know it cannot always be easy to relive and drudge up the emotions that have backed songs about addiction, loneliness, and anxiety. For Cozmo, music a tool we use to keep and protect our sanity, which is why, ironically, he approached the Bowery Ballroom stage like a madman.

I swear that Mondo Cozmo has been taking aerobics classes. If Baby’s All Right was an intro to his music, and Barclays was a follow-up in his love for it, then Bowery was a display that he is an official headlining performer. I had noted in my previous reviews that Cozmo was growing in comfort levels with his music and performance styles. Thus, by the time I saw him at Bowery, he was completely settled in his weathered-rocker style. Tracks like “Chemical Dream”, “Higher”, and my favorite, “Plastic Soul”, leaped vocally and symbolically as Cozmo’s signature challenge; the battle between spiritual excess and physical hangovers. On one hand, Cozmo could break himself into a millions pieces and throw himself everywhere in energy, lyrics, and literally. The way he leaped with his guitar made me wonder if we had started a sporadic game of Olympic jump-rope. He was beyond frenetic as he tossed his hands and tussled around the stage as if to not move would cause him to self-implode. He was throwing “God Bless You’s” to the crowd, and bursting with a fiery joy at witnessing his deserved climb as an artist and even humanist, which leads me to” the other hand”. Cozmo’s music is about dealing with the fact that being able to be chaos does not mean you should be it. Having an addiction and capacity for adrenaline can be detrimental if such force is steered towards wrong habits like, too much drugs, sex, and emotional numbness. Instead, Cozmo is trying to uses his energy like, in “Angel” and “Automatic”; to live life to the fullest while trying to find some balance to that notion. 

Yes, Cozmo can do it all, but should he? Does he need to? Will it make him better? Will it make him kinder and softer to others’ own desire of love from him? These are the questions he asks through his lyrics and,  we face in life, when we know our capacities are endless but our choices are finite. These challenging verses only fuel his vocals. He sounds like the bursting flames and spewing ash of a volcano, which makes sense considering he sings to battling demons and reviving angels. You feel the honesty of his plight, which makes him magnetic. I elaborate that raw, honest nature because nowadays being a “bad boy” can seem lauded even if you were never one. All you have to do is look “bad” and have everyone fawn over you. Yet, Cozmo presents himself like a man that has seen darkness and said, “Nah, I prefer to shine”. You have to admire that! Click Here For More Information On Mondo Cozmo