for fans of: Unknown Mortal Orchestra, DIIV, The War On Drugs
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| from a festival performance earlier this year (photo creds: fame images) |
Crossing the bridge at Camden Locke, it began. First they were in small quantities then, like a plague of locus, they multiplied and were everywhere. Walking down the street sporting cans of Red Stripe, they were greeted with more of their kind congregated on the grassy slope outside Camden Morrison's or lingering outside bars (which they probably hadn't even been into) on Chalk Farm Road smoking roll-ups. Then, Mecca is reached. And there are, what seems like, millions of them. The Mac Demarco clone squad is out in full force.
It was almost like a convention; the annual meeting for all who seek to emulate the style and aesthetic of Mr Demarco from head to toe. This was no exaggeration: a good 85% (an extremely mathematical estimation) of those who flocked to the Roundhouse to witness their idol in the flesh were living breathing cliches. The majority were clad in baggy t-shirts/sweatshirts/button-ups, jeans with the cuffs rolled up, sport socks pulled up to their ankles and any of the stereotypical footwear deemed acceptable to such a crowd. Many even went as far as to complete their look with the staple Mac accessory: the 80s flat cap (exemplified on 3/4 of his album covers thus far). It was fair to say that my second-hand embarrassment had seldom been so fierce. But at least no one had tried to imitate his iconic tooth gap: get the Demarco look.
Inside the venue itself, the atmosphere of the unmistakably try-hard crowd tiptoed into hysteria. Through the mist of marijuana (yes, people really did stoop to those depths to emphasise their "ultra-hip youthful rebellion") Demarco emerged to a vehement roar. It's clear from the get-go that these fans worship the holy ground he walks on.
Brooklyn's zaniest export has ascended from relative obscurity to against-the-tide hero status. His music is generally gentle soft rock slurs with the occasional doo-wop or quirk - intimate vanilla tunes that, remarkably, are able to keep themselves far away from bland territory - so what is it that's been able to charm the masses?
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| Mac during saucier times (photo creds: tumblr) |
I believe there to be a sort of illusion surrounding Mac Demarco. Because he engages in two-minute-long screams onstage in between songs and because it appears he has minimal responsibilities offstage, many consider him a pinnacle of hedonistic eccentricity. Often photographed surrounded by his beloved Marlboros or wearing a silly billy facial expression, it's easy to see why some perceive him as a bizarre nutjob. In reality, I judge him to be pretty normal. His antics are nothing short of happy-go-lucky banter. He's like a lad, except he's actually funny (e.g. when he strikes a multitude of poses while chanting "John" in honour of one of his new band members) and seems to be suffering from a bit of an identity crisis.
September 9th marked the second of Demarco's sold out shows at Camden's Roundhouse where he demonstrated a set heavy in his latest material from his newly-released mini album Another One. While songs like title-track Another One and The Way You'd Love Her created an aura of magnetism, others such as A Heart Like Hers fell onto deaf ears. His showmanship, however, was not the cause of this, but rather the crowd's bawdy restlessness.
Pictures of Mac Demarco gigs have always shown them to be artistic interpretations of feeding time at the zoo. Honestly, the pits are actual mad ting considering the nature of the music. From fists in faces to the current pulling fans under, it was clear that the mellow slacker smoothness in Demarco's catalogue was unmatched for the fans. The lawlessness reached its peak early in the set as soon as Demarco croaked the lines "As I'm getting older..." and everyone in the crowd screamed the entire song (which is, of course, the lazy boy anthem Salad Days from the 2014 album of the same name) back to him.
While the crowd's energy seemed to die somewhere along the halfway point, Demarco and his band steamrolled through the set like Duracell bunnies until the very end. Every song was the same classic that everyone had heard again and again while their Mac Demarco Spotify sessions played on loop, except live they're beefier and better. With an almost nitty gritty edge to his easy breezy freshness, he incited anarchy with favourites Freaking Out The Neighbourhood and Cooking Up Something Good. Perhaps the more rugged sound emanated from the Roundhouse's hideous sound system which meant hearing any spoken word from anyone onstage was literally impossible. Nonetheless, Demarco and his band seemed to slip into the spotlight of their biggest British stage to date with comfortable ease.
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| Mac and his Vans crowd surfing last year while they were stiiiiiillll tooooogeeetttthhherrrrr (photo creds: NME) |
In his grand finale, Demarco ended with his cozy love serenade to long-time girlfriend Kiera (who he's waking at the end of the studio version - he's not calling over a cat as I originally thought). Still Together's shrill but in-tune wailing has a kind of Lion King-esque vibe going down and the live version has real gusto. While the band members onstage engage in an indulgent instrumental, what else can we expect from Demarco except for him to dive head first into the crowd only to emerge five minutes later utterly battered and bruised. Hobbling back onstage in a Sonic Youth shirt now ripped to shreds and unsalvageable, he mildly threatens to beat up whoever stole one of his red Vans before completing the howls of "stiiiiiillll tooooogethhherrrrrr". Apparently he was so pissed off at this that he refused to encore his usual Metallica cover. A bit of an ironic reaction considering he was detained by police mid-performance last year in Santa Barbara, CA for climbing the venue's scaffolding. I guess there's one thing you can learn from these experiences, Mac: don't feed the hipsters.
