Baby Carrots and A Shot with Jeremy Zucker
Standing for four hours in the cold isn’t something most people would sign up for. However, when it’s to see Jeremy Zucker live…sign me up.
While I was going with a friend, she was only planning to get to the venue around 6. Determined to get a good spot, and me being the person I am, I decided to go early and arrive at 3. It paid off.
At 7 o’clock, me and my friend were in the venue and at our spots, about 3 rows back from the barricade. Pretty good, considering the amount of people that were in the venue. The only downside to our spots was the 6 foot tall guy who pushed his way to the front and right in front of us. I can’t blame tall people for being tall, but I can blame him for being pushy.
An hour of waiting around for everyone to filter in and for everything to be set up on stage and then it was showtime.
Valley Boy opened up the show by singing a couple of songs. A pair of friends that met in middle school, James and Ian make up Valley Boy. Armed with a guitar and bass, Valley Boy played songs off their 2021 album Thursday Friday and their latest single “Disgusting”. My favorite songs of theirs are currently “Aloha” and “Sad Girl”. The duo were entertaining as they cracked jokes between songs. When they first came to the stage, they acknowledged that the crowd probably wouldn’t know most of their songs. Someone said they were “self aware kings’ to which I agree. Not everyone was unfamiliar with their discography. There was a small pocket of fans who sang along to every word. The rest of us tried our best. As part of their set and in order “to keep them humble” as James said, him and Ian had the crowd yell out “Valley Boy sucks”, which is also the name of their Instagram handle.
Next up was Babygirl. Another duo, Kiki Frances and Cameron Breithaupt hail from Toronto. A long way from home, when the two took to the stage with their drummer, New York gave them a warm welcome. Babygirl has been releasing music since 2016 and released many singles and other projects over the years. Their most recent being their 2021 album “Losers Weepers''. They have a sort of dreamy emo bubblegum pop sound to them. It sounds like a strange mix, but the combo of dreamy vocals, guitar lines, and more pop style lyrics works extremely well. Some of their sarcastic lyrics also provide a fresh twist to what would be an expected story, such as in “Nevermind”. That track is definitely one of my favorites along with “Million Dollar Bed”, “Easy”, and “Homemade Holiday”. I had them on repeat for a solid week after the concert.
Finally, it was time for Jeremy Zucker. At this point, the crowd had been waiting for over an hour and a half, but as soon as he started the first song, the energy noticeably picked up. Most of the songs he played were from his album “Crusher”, but he threw in some well known oldies as well like “all the kids are depressed”. When I had been waiting in line, people kept mentioning Chelsea Cutler and they hoped she would show up. I had hopes, but didn’t fully expect it. Of course, I went insane when she came out on stage to sing “you were good to me” with Jeremy. It was a nice surprise and the two performed so well together. You could see their friendship on stage. #verycute.
Some notable moments during the show: somebody brought Jeremy a bag of baby carrots. Yes, carrots. He actually accepted them, but said he’d probably get food poisoning if he ate them, given that they’d been in this person’s pocket for numerous hours. He also came down to the crowd to take a shot with someone. The last song of the night was “talk is overrated” and Jeremy came off stage to give the crowd a hug. Touching way to end the night.
You can check out Valley Boy's music here, Babygirl here, and Jeremy Zucker here. Photos from the concert can be seen here.