Alex G shows don’t work quite like other shows.
Normally, the kind of audience member who shouts out song titles, demanding that the band play them, is looked down on. It takes a certain level of either ignorance or arrogance (or both) to believe that you should be the one telling the artist what to do. At The Blind Pig on Saturday, however, during the final show of Alex G’s tour with openers LVL UP and Brandon Can’t Dance, these more vocal showgoers were rewarded. Alex G only really ever prepares half of their setlist, and leaves the rest up to the audience, so when the audience started chanting “Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!” the band responded by playing “Sarah” — though not before Alex himself pretended to be angry with the audience for shouting their request.
There’s nothing innately funny about this statement, but the confidence with which it was said and his feigned expectation that the audience would be impressed made it resonate. Even better was when he asked, one song later, whether the audience was familiar with “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” — “I was in that movie too.” About five minutes later he also let the audience know that he was in “The Matrix: Reloaded.” So as not to tire the bit, he stopped there.
About 15 minutes into the set, Alex let the crowd know that the band was about to play their last song — the show ended about an hour and several songs later. A lot of people find his behavior on stage cocky and off-putting, but it truly is a part of the art of putting on a show (or it is for Alex G, at least). Multi-faceted performance at its finest, with not just music live, but an offbeat comedy show interspersed with occasional cultural commentary. It’s refreshing to see a performer who is also a person, and it’s easy to see that Alex G — the person and the band — really just aim to have fun onstage.
Later, after a spontaneous discussion of the virtues of Tom Cruise, the band announced that they would be playing two more songs, one that the audience could choose, then an encore. After playing “Animals” per request, Alex told the crowd the show was over. About 30 seconds later, the band started their last song. Starting as a rolling, jazzy piece, Alex changed the keyboard he was playing to the DJ Sampler setting, and absurdity once again became the driving force of the show. The next three minutes were loaded with “woo”s and “yeah”s and artificial vinyl scratches, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in the audience who didn’t crack a smile.