By Soleste Starr
I arrived early to the sold out Car Seat Headrest concert last Thursday, May 5th, the neon sign of White Oak Music Hall like a beacon through fog and the beginnings of light rain. However, I certainly wasn’t the earliest, as the band had attracted a line as far as six hours in advance, including a pair that had followed the band from San Diego to Los Angeles to Austin to Houston. Hearing the story of this mother-son duo only made me all the more excited to see this cult-captivating band play live, eager to learn what so clearly enraptured over a million Spotify listeners, a number that grows by the day.
Before Car Seat Headrest took the stage, however, I was delighted to hear the work of Bartees Strange, a rockin’ up-and-coming musician out of Oklahoma. Donning an epic striped-shirt-striped-overalls-combo, his iconography began long before he ever opened his mouth. However, with a voice as sweet as Leon Bridges that quickly progressed into head-thrashing alt-rock, his music soon made me forget what he–or anyone else–was wearing. I extend a noteworthy shoutout to the keyboardist/guitarist of the band, whose long-red-hair-thrashing was particularly awesome, all while they expertly handled two instruments.
Three of Bartees Strange’s songs really struck me throughout the set, the first being a piece that Strange wrote in honor of George Floyd’s daughter, Gianna Floyd. The song, “Hold the Line,” a contribution to a Black Visions compilation, features lyrics like, “See that babe / See that child / Can’t imagine what’s flying through her young mind now,” and “I’m heavy, I’m full, I’m tired / I’ve seen it for my whole life.” A fellow audience member clutched their hand to their heart for all four minutes.
Strange moved from “Hold the Line” directly into an astonishing cover of “Lemonworld” by The National. While I’m a sucker for the monotonous and gravely musings of Matt Berninger, Bartees Strange took this song to a new level with an intensity I’d never have expected and certainly will never forget. The third of my favorites was the last song, “Heavy Heart,” which he prefaced with the notion, “You can feel guilty for everything, even when it’s not your fault.” Until the very end, Bartees Strange moved seamlessly between R&B-like vocals and heavy indie-rock; he was a direct testament to the idea that you should ALWAYS get there early enough for the opener.
Between sets, an apparent Tik Tok trend took over the crowd, masking casual conversation and light intermission music in uproars every minute or so for a game that I couldn’t tell you anything about. The two people who had followed the tour from California to Texas said that Houston was certainly the youngest and most boisterous crowd, although they couldn’t complain about the antics given that the night before, people had been passing out before the concert even started due to the heat at Stubbs in Austin, Texas, a great venue that faced some truly unfortunate weather.
To speak on venues, White Oak couldn’t have been a better place to see this show. I’ve attended concerts at all three venues of the location, including outside and the smaller upstairs stage, but their downstairs standing-room-only space at which this concert was hosted is my personal preference. It’s small enough to feel intimate with a large enough capacity to garner the energy of a full audience; you c
an feel lost in the music without feeling lost in the crowd. Further, the lighting and sound aspects of the performances are always stellar, a trend which continued as Will Toledo and the rest of Car Seat Headrest (Andrew Katz on the drums, Ethan Ives on the guitar, and Seth Dalby on the bass) took the stage around 10 p.m.
Toledo walked out in an orange two-piece baggy suit and his classic gas-mask-bunny-ears-headpiece, earning an absolutely chaotic applause from the crowd, in which I spotted three or four matching masks throughout the night. Beginning with “Crows” off of Nervous Young Man, they start
ed a night of epic mayhem and unparalleled dance moves on the part of Will Toledo. Rhythmic Tai-Chi-esque movements quickly transitioned into literal weight-lifting gestures for the song “Weightlifters,” which was followed by a fan-favorite, “Fill in the Blank”; almost all of the audience sang along religiously, initializing my thoughts on a major theme of the night: existentialist cynicism.
The pattern that began with “I've got a right to be depressed… I have seen too much of this world, yes,” in “Fill in Blank” and continued with, “I’m sick of meaning, I just wanna hold you” in “Bodys” displayed a clear preference in the audience members for the more nihilistic lyrics in each song, a right that is perhaps earned as much of the world falls to shreds around us, a concept that Toledo captures beautifully in his writing: being alive and in turmoil.
Andrew Katz on the drums commentated skillfully the entire time, leading into “Destroyed by Hippie Powers” with the question, “Got any hippies in the crowd?” followed by an expected uproar and Katz’s “Yeah… I can tell.” The song preceded a lighting blackout as the sound reduced to only Toledo’s voice and a singular electric guitar, slowing it down for “Sober to Death.” It wasn’t slow for long, however, as they subsequently dove straight into “It’s Only Sex,” and the stage flooded with magenta light. This song actually ended up being my favorite of the night, in part because of the sad precedent set when I saw TV Girl in New York (a review you can also find on our site). Instead of revealing misogynist and self-absorbed beliefs akin to Brad (of TV Girl), Toledo delivered on the romantic satire that I had been ardently seeking. Toledo sang, “But I don't care about hundreds of hypothetical people / And their hypothetical sex deals / I care about me, and my sex deal! / What about my problems?” with an exactly appropriate amount of self-deprecation, sarcasm, and underlying honesty that is relatable and cathartic.
Another of my favorite moments in the show was during “Beach Life-In-Death,” when the eyes of Toledo’s mask lit up bright red, all else went dark, and the crowd chanted devotedly, “Get more groceries, get eaten.” After this haunting and resonant moment, Toledo revealed that they’d be doing their last song and that there would be no encore; “You should go home and get some rest,” he suggested, a well-informed idea as the clock approached midnight. They closed with “Deadlines” off of Making a Door Less Open, their most recent album, and stuck to their word, offering no more songs. The crowd wasn’t quick to go home, however, with a merch line that stayed for well over half an hour after all the lights came back on, further evidence of the cult that, by this point, I believed was well-deserved. I went home satiated on live music at White Oak once again, and a much bigger fan of Car Seat Headrest.
photos from Blade Simensky (@bmsimensky)