Girl at the Rock Shows

It’s rare that I hear a song one time and instantly get hooked. It’s even more rare for this song to come from one of the playlists that I just absentmindedly put on throughout the day for background music. That being said, that’s exactly had I stumbled upon JHARIAH. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had some random playlist in the background at my day job and a JHARIAH song came on. I had no choice but to stop everything because it commanded my attention to easily. I didn’t have time to dwell on it, but I knew that it was fate when I saw JHARIAH’sname in the upcoming shows at the 7th Street Entry. I knew I was already covering the show upstairs at the legendary First Avenue mainroom but that just meant I had no excuse and it was clearly a sign that I was meant to see JHARIAH perform.

My age was the first thing I noticed when I walked into the intimate 7th Street Entry. I instantly felt about ten years older than I actually am, purely due to how young everyone in the sold-out room looked and felt. It was a weird dynamic and definitely got my night off to a rocky start, but as soon as opening act PIAO took the stage and started performing, I realized that age is just a number. That’s such a common phrase and idea, but Sunday night at the 7th Street Entry was a good reminder of that.

Sure, I wasn’t like the kids surrounding me singing along to every word of PIAO’s pop-drenched tunes or dancing along to her choreographed dance moves like I had been studying them, but I was enamored by the way that everyone around me was eating up every word and every movement coming from PIAO.

Truthfully, her pop songs that came with lots of backtracking weren’t quite for me, but the way the audience acted was a saving grace. I didn’t quite get it, but this was one of those acts that wasn’t right for me. It was for the hundreds of kids around me who clearly knew who PIAO was before this show and had been dying to see her perform live and breath in her heartfelt lyrics and stunning vocals in a live setting.

I felt that PIAO was treated like a headliner would be with the amount of excitement in the room as she was performing but as soon as she left the stage and the room was being made for headlining act JHARIAH, I felt that excitement reach an all-new high. The anticipation was palpable, but what I loved more during the quick changeover was watching strangers become fast friends. I feel like we lose a lot of that as we get older– the ability to meet someone and become best friends. Watching the young kids interact around me gave me life in a way that I didn’t know I needed. From conversations about their pets to talking about where they got their shirt or what brand their shoes were, there was just something so sweet and innocent about everything going on around me and I never wanted that feeling to end.

Thankfully, it didn’t. In fact, JHARIAH’s set and the music that filled the room only enhanced all of the joy, innocence and wonder I had witnessed between sets. Musically, JHARIAH;s sound is a mix of Panic at the Disco drama with Jeff Rosenstock’s DIY punk styling, but even that description needs to do JHARIAH ‘s music justice. From a prominent saxophone to catchy choruses mixed with angst lines of words and notes, JHARIAH sound was all over the place, but the main theme of the set was fun. Whether that was the fun of watching JHARIAH dance around the little space he was allowed on the super tiny stage or watching the band wail along on their instruments with a sense of fire and passion that just could not be contained by the stage, it was fun. The audience matched this energy and quickly turned into a sweaty mess of people jumping and bopping around, all smiling.

I had only ever heard one JHARIAH song, so I couldn’t sing along to the words, but after I became acclimated to all of the energy and movement around me, I stopped and took a second to breathe in the words. It quickly became obvious why the kids around me were screaming along to every word like their lives depended on it– it was because the words meant something and were so much more than words to a song. These were words that describe how hard life can be as a kid these days. Hell, they were words that even I, as a thirty-four-year-old, could relate to. JHARIAH didn’t hold back when it came to the energy he was giving the crowd and didn’t hold back when it came to the amount of soul he was willing to bear on stage.

I may have been among the oldest people in the sold-out show at the 7th Street Entry on Sunday night but the music hit me just the same. I love seeing young up-and-comers who clearly understand that music is more than music- it’s a personal connection, and to say that JHARIAH knows that and respects it would be an understatement.

Line Up:

PIAO

JHARIAH

Venue: 7th Street Entry

Smell-O-Meter: Sweat

Average Age of the Crowd: 14

Crowd Surfers- None

Stage Divers- None

Mosh-ability- 8 out of 10

Amount of Beer Spilled On Me While Walking Around- $0

Broken Bones- None

Spotted Flying Through The Air- Nothing

Fights- None Witnessed

Pukers- 0

Passed Out Kids- 0

Idiots Taken Out By Security – None Spotted

How Irritated I Was With The Audience – 0 out of 10

How Many Times I’ve Seen These Bands Before (or at least how many times I can remember)-

PIAO – 0

JHARIAH– 0

Celebrity Sightings – None

Overall Score – 8.2 out of 10

Show on Deck — Kelsy Karter & The Heroines / Alexa Villa / Emi Jeen

Shameless Self Promotion:

Join My Patreon Here!

Buy Me a Coffee (Seriously!)

Check out my playlist HERE!