Concert Review: Sunflower Bean Show Twenty-Two In Blue At Bowery
Twenty-Two is a strange age. It kind of feels like the last few clinks before the roller-coaster drops, and you are swiveled and swerved through a ride we call life. Before twenty-two, youth still feels protected, but after the “hard knocks” begin to “mature”/ embitter you. Sunflower Bean played their sophomore album, Twenty-Two In Blue, at Bowery Ballroom, and had the crowd roaring like it was a mass exorcism of stress and the priestess was Julia Cumming.
Cumming has a voice that feels like a rioting dream. She comes off like an igniting, powerful force, and uses her self-empowerment to lunge her energy, and nearly herself, at the crowd and rise its esteem. There was feeling that if she could crack herself into a million pieces and offer herself to the audience she would. When her and Nick Kivlen unite in vocals, it highlights the vaping magic and surprising positivism of Sunflower Bean’s rocking, raucous show. The key to their performance is that they pluck and repeat certain lyrics from their tracks that rile the good emotions we all want to feel like, “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be”. They create mantras of mutual rebellion and self-love because, in this world, the most rebellious thing you can do is love yourself and others. The high school friends turned hit-makers are a literal example of that. Who doesn’t want to make a band in high-school, and grow to sing to sold-out crowds? Who actually does it? The rebels like, Sunflower Bean.
Sunflower Bean – I Was a Fool
“Crisis Fest”, “Only A Moment”, and “Human For” were songs that could simultaneously rev and relax a crowd with their testament to something we all know about society: it’s hypocritical. We talk about peace but live in war. We encourage people to go for their dreams, but then tell them they are unrealistic if they do. We love for people to be “real”, but call a person who publicly says they are hurting a “whiner” and a person who does not wear make-up “authentic”. NO WONDER WE ARE ANXIOUS! Sorry for the ramble, but the example hits upon why Sunflower Bean are rising as indie darlings and subtly, political commentators; how you act reflects who you are, and if society acts mean and scared then it signifies we, as individuals, are being mean scared.
Sunflower Bean – Crisis Fest
Kind and fearless are exactly what Sunflower Bean are as artists, and their concert doubled those sentiments in their album. From “Memoria” to “Oh No, Bye Bye”, Sunflower Bean offer a balanced concert ambiance. On one hand, they look and stylize themselves like the cool outcasts we all wish to be, but, on the other, they present themselves as the “everyman” that knows looking cool pales to feeling and being it. In essence, they are achieving what night-rockers wish to be: they are human, but make that vulnerability feel freeing. For More Information On Sunflower Bean Click Here.
Sunflower Bean – Come On
