Concert Review: Tomberlin Shows Love Confounds At Rough Trade
Tomberlin is a fascinating concert experience because is all of us. She is the awkward, amiable soul that wants to connect with people, but how do you emanate all that you can offer in a “Hello?” So often, we fear conversation or even an introduction because in each mind lives a world, and you cannot fit a world into a response for “How are you?” At Rough trade, Tomberlin represented this struggle.
Front and center, Tomberlin sang tracks like “Seventeen” and “At Weddings.” As the crowd felt dispersed into pockets of lovers and friends, their was an unadulterated intimacy to their sound. It played to the smart person’s insecurities about love. When you are called “intelligent” or an “old soul,” you might think you are mature enough to handle and know love. Yet, this power is beyond age or mind. She can confound the best of us, and Tomberlin’s voice plays to how softly love makes us bend to her regality. In perspective, it is madness how much love makes sanest person self-combust at sitting next to a crush, feel like our soul is flying while holding hands with a boyfriend, or turn our heart into beating death if we feel we have no one to call for a simple chat.
On record, Tomberlin’s songs mystify like a colorful xylophone, of which each key is a youthful anxiety you strike and ping. Yet, in concert, I was surprised by how romantic their music felt. It was as if someone was as if someone had cast a fishing net over the crowd, and we were all the “plenty of fishes in the sea” that acknowledge the love ocean is lonely. Until, you find “the right one” the journey to love and partnership can feel like you are Nemo trying to avoid a batch of hooks or ending up stuck in a fish tank. All you want is a sense of home, but, until then, you have to deal with how confusing it is to define that sense between two people.
For a show that is simple, beautiful, and has its wit, I would recommended Tomberlin. She laughed about loving water or having to stop and charged her phone at Target. As someone whose phone is consistently on 20%, I felt that struggle. #firstworldproblems Yet, she has a voice that bring the quietness to emotions like depression and excitement. These opposing sentiments have the power to silence us because they, themselves, are hushed by love and the desire for it. For More Information on Tomberlin Click Here.
