On Saturday, MØ brought her Forever Neverland: Chapter Two tour to the Fine Line. Despite the arctic front, the place was packed. With the low temperatures this week, the standing room only vibe didn’t really bother me because, hey, in this cold, I don’t mind a couple extra doses of body heat…or a hundred extra doses.
The night began with ABRA, an alternative R&B artist out of Atlanta who is currently signed to Awful Records. Her simple set up — an SM58 microphone and a DJ table behind her — set the tone for a no-frills kind of night centered around the music.
For a synth and effects based artist, I was surprised at how well her live vocals blended with her backing tracks and translated to a live performance. This is a true testament of how great of a vocalist she is.
Her sound is unique — blending 80s style synths and drum samples suited for Notorious B.I.G. tracks, all nestled under Aaliyah-influenced vocal tones. The crowd was so into it that, at one point, she held out her microphone to an audience member near the stage who nailed the lyrics without skipping a beat.
The only thing that could have made this opener better would have been a bigger DJ rig behind her to allow for more live mixing. Sure, I like the simple setup, but if you are playing snare samples that remind me of Biggie and I look back and see nothing but a laptop running the show, color me disappointed. It was her last show with MØ on this tour, but stay tuned for future dates and check out her upcoming album.
Following up ABRA was, of course, the main attraction. The changeover was done and the house music had been playing for what seemed like a while, so I grabbed my phone to see where I was at in this set change time warp. Prior to MØ’s set, my engineer friend told me ABRA ended a bit earlier than expected and MØ was planning on starting at 10:00pm. I looked at my phone, the time was 9:59pm, and no one was on stage yet.
Quite literally at the stroke of 10:00pm, music started and the band was on stage. If nothing else good and true happened in this show, I would still have a positive take away from that experience alone. Having been conditioned to the new norm of artists’ and performers’ notoriously late set starts, this was a breath of fresh air from MØ and gave audience members the feeling that she was there for us.
She opened with “Purple Like the Summer Rain,” which was the perfect low maintenance first song to let us ease into her set and sound. The only thing more amazing than how well her giant black hat stayed on her head was the number of textures on stage that played perfectly together.
I was in awe of the musicianship that was happening behind her and how she didn’t look back once to tell the band what to do. One moment the drummer was playing drums and the next moment he was playing the keyboard while the keyboardist played a KORG controller. It was like a game of musical chairs…but without the anxiety or failure…or chairs. Completely seamless.
The integration of a full band into her show was arguably the best move MØ could have made as a performer (take note, other solo performers). The sound was beautiful. The drums were so tight that you would have thought they were samples if you weren’t there to see the drummer playing a drum kit right in front of you — he even played the chimes more than once and I didn’t hate it.
The KORG Controller was dreamy (obviously…it’s a KORG), but also a great physical representation of the musicianship it takes to produce synth-style music (take note, ABRA’s DJ). All of these streamlined clean sounds paired so well with MØ’s raspy vocals that we all know and love, especially her LIVE raspy vocals.
About halfway through the show, MØ performed from a second platform by the sound booth. How she got there, I have no idea, though after her performance I am sure she is magical (and not just because I am convinced she is the birth child of SIA and Lady Gaga). It was a great way for her to cater to all of her fans, even the ones who didn’t care enough to get there early and snag a spot in front.
She sang two songs from the back platform and then walked through the crowd back up to the stage. She sang almost an entire song while working her way through the mass, taking her time to dance and sing with her fans, once again demonstrating she was there for us. The moment was so genuine, almost as if she was just in a club dancing and singing with a bunch of her friends, as if she was our hype man, not the other way around. She made her way back to the stage and continued to shower the crowd with love and music, hitting every note perfectly and dabbing not once, not twice, but three times during a breakdown. Thank you for that, truly.
Before the show started, my engineer friend told me that MØ’s production crew brought almost an entire semi of lighting gear that the Fine Line just didn’t have room to set up. This spurred a conversation of “why is MØ playing such a small venue like the Fine Line?” We didn’t really decide on an answer to that — maybe the other venues were already booked when her tour was booking dates, maybe someone wanted to save a buck and decided not to book a bigger venue — who knows. But it was somewhere between the dancing in the crowd and dabbing on the stage that I realized this show wouldn’t have been the same in a bigger venue.
To experience such a big artist in a smaller setting is a rare privilege. I’m sure the next time MØ comes to Minneapolis it will not be in a setting where she can walk through the crowd and dance with her fans.
I am grateful I was able to see MØ here, now, in this smaller space — truly an experience I will never forget. MØ is heading for the West Coast for the remainder of her time in the US, but if you have some extra airline miles lying around, it is well worth the experience.
