Girl at the Rock Shows

Frisson is the scientific word for when music gives you goosebumps. It’s something that happens to me on a daily basis, and I honestly just thought it was normal. Apparently, it’s not. As the studies state, people who experience this phenomenon tend to score higher on openness to new experiences, have more vivid imaginations, and possess higher levels of emotional empathy. I’m not sure if I believe that fully, but I do believe that if there wasn’t a moment during Thursday night’s show at the 7th Street Entry that gave you goosebumps, you aren’t quite human.

Getting the night started was Kansas native Anna Hamilton. Anna was super quiet and soft when addressing the audience, but as soon as she started performing with her guitar in hand, that softness turned to emotionally charged angst. Don’t get me wrong, her quick, twenty-five-minute opening set remained in the singer-songwriter pop vein of things and never really strayed into anything more intense, but the delivery hit me like a truck. Her songs about love and love lost may not have been the most relatable to me at this current time in my life, but they took me back to the various heartbreaks that had a lasting effect on me, whether I’d like to admit it or not.

Although everything felt so serious and somber about the music that Anna was performing, there was a lot of humorous charm that radiated from her between songs. Most notable was when she was explaining what “Dead End” was about. She talked about how this song was in reference to her longest relationship. She laid out the woodwork like this song was going to be an optimistic piece of art, but then, without skipping a beat, she concluded her explanation by saying that this song was called “Dead End.” It got a huge laugh out of the otherwise completely silent audience, and for good reason. Who couldn’t relate to that at one time or another? Who hasn’t felt true love and thought that it was going to last forever, just to figure out that it was a “Dead End”? What I’m trying to say is that although Anna Hamilton’s music was much softer than I tend to go for and leaned more into the romance category than I tend to go for, she made the set fun, relatable, and perfect. I only wish I had had more time with her. Twenty-five minutes just didn’t feel like enough.

I’ve been to sold-out shows at the 7th Street Entry before. Really, it’s nothing new, but this sold-out show felt different. I was there thirty minutes before the show, thinking I had more than enough time to snag a spot up front, but came in to an already packed to the brim room. There was excitement flowing through the air, and as amazing as Anna was, it wasn’t this way because of her. It was this way because of the headlining act, Ike Dweck. I had never heard of Ike before. Truthfully, I was aiming for a different show on Thursday night, but when that one didn’t come to fruition, I jumped ship and came over to this one. The excitement and the fact that people had gotten to this show so early told me that the concert Gods had pulled a fast one on me. Maybe I would have rather been at PeelingFlesh when driving to the Entry on Thursday night, but they knew that I needed Ike, and I can not bow down to them enough for making this choice for me.

You know those goosebumps I talked about? My first encounter with them happened within the first two seconds of Ike Dweck’s opening song. It’s his voice. That’s the first thing that hits you. A bit like William Elliot Whitmore, there’s so much depth and darkness behind his voice. It’s deeper than anything you’ve ever heard, to a point where it almost feels unnatural at first, but as you let yourself get lost in the ocean of Ike’s vocals, you realize that it’s the perfect backdrop for the stories he tells in his songs. The deep and dark vocals pair so perfectly with the heart-on-sleeve styled lyrics. Add in his charming style and the way, like Anna, he is able to add some humor to his otherwise somber and serious set with the banter between him and the audience between tracks, and you are left with pure perfection.

“Nobody is going to leave this show happy,” Ike joked. He wasn’t completely wrong, but also not completely right. Sure, the overall tone of his set was sad and somber, but there was something much deeper than that. There were a lot of songs that he sang where the words just didn’t do it for me. They were stories that I hadn’t been through, feelings that I hadn’t had, but something extraordinary happened as I was standing there and listening to Ike. I fell into his web of words. Sure, I may not have had the same experiences that he was singing about, but the way he put his all into every word made me feel the pain and emotion like it was happening to me. I know that doesn’t sound like a lovely way to spend a Thursday night, but this was a feeling that I had never felt to this extent before, and it was truly remarkable.

Does music give you goosebumps? Are you one of those people who doesn’t hear a line of lyrics as just some words but as a relatable story that either takes you down memory lane or makes you feel seen in a super vulnerable way? If so, Thursday night at the 7th Street Entry was the show for you. It was cathartic, it was sad, it was powerful, it was beautiful– it was absolutely perfect.

Line Up:

Anna Hamilton

Ike Dweck

Venue: 7th Street Entry

Smell-O-Meter: Nothing

Average Age of the Crowd: 25

Crowd Surfers- 0

Stage Divers- 0

Mosh-ability- 0 out of 10

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

Broken Bones- None

Spotted Flying Through The Air- Nothing

Fights- None

Pukers- 0

Passed Out People- 0

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

Anna Hamilton – 0

Ike Dweck – 0

Show on Deck – L.A. Witch / The Black Angels

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