It is a fact of my idiosyncratic music taste (within, at least, my friend groups) that I am doomed to have no one to go to concerts with. This isn't really much of a problem, because the musicians I like rarely ever come to Australia, if ever. But recently, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal came to Sydney, and I wasn't going to miss out on possibly my only chance to ever see a GBC member live just because I had no one to go with. Despite it being a social point of pity, I love going to see movies alone, so why not a concert? I know why. Because it's slightly weird to dance by yourself. But Wicca Phase's music isn't exactly the bopping kind, so I felt comfortable enough to buy my one ticket.
I wasn't too nervous leading up to it, because I'd sort of resigned myself to the fate of being awkward, and I just cared about enjoying the music and seeing Adam live, Adam whose "High Strangeness" and "She Doesn't Believe in Thelema" and "In Providence" calmed me through days in Hancock library planning my Romantic literature presentation. (How fitting - that neo-romanticism would guide me through romanticism). I started to get nervous, however, when I was getting ready for the concert, ie putting on my outfit. This is what I wore:
I was really happy with it, because I felt like a goth angel bitch, but it was undeniably a little bit risqué and I was worried about being with a bunch of drunk men, alone. Oh, the joyous options open to women! Should I worry about being roofied, or just classically hounded all night?
Anyway, I wasn't too nervous about the actual social aspect of being alone, though it did feel weird walking around the city beforehand all dressed up with no one else, equally dressed, to validate my dressiness. Does that make sense? But I persevered anyway, relying on a very sulky face to express: "I'm an angry goth bitch. Don't question my presence, or my aloneness, or I'll burn your retinas with mine." This worked all the way up to getting to Oxford Art Factory.
I got there late, around 10, because I really didn't give a fuck about the opening acts and didn't want to be standing around alone and bored for two hours. I ordered a vodka soda at the bar, because I thought that would be cool, forgetting that I'm a total pussy when it comes to alcohol and that there would be nothing to mask the taste of the vodka. I then found a little industrial metal bannister to lean on and sort of slot myself into, so I felt safe and not as awkward being alone.
It turns out that I came at pretty much the perfect time, because they started playing peep / gbc / emo songs for that half-hour before Wicca Phase came out. I got so emotional when the first song started up and it was the piano melody of LiL Kennedy; I thought I was going to cry. But I just mouthed the words of the song to myself:
they don't see me 'less I pull a lamborghini
everybody wanna be me till I pull up and they meet me
lead me to death, I'm lil kennedy
just another fucking junkie
drain my blood but don't be greedy
leave some liquid for the centipedes
they eat away my memory
I'd never heard a peep song played so loud before. I'd never been in a room where anyone else could sing along to his songs. And here it was, bouncing off the walls, with a room full of people who knew the lyrics.
There was actually a really annoying guy right in front of me who was there with his alty girlfriend; he looked like your regular fuckboy, complete with the backwards hat. He kept, like, bouncing to every song but only in his back and he'd walk around doing that with his head down and he nearly bumped into me and other people so many times. I was surprised he knew all the words to all the songs, because they seemed a little too emotionally loaded for him. Maybe he didn't really get it, or maybe I should stop being a judgemental bitch who thinks she's better than everyone and the only person who's capable of being depressed. Anyway, at one point I heard him say to a random guy, "I'm just here for the Little Peep intermissions", which made me cringe twofold.
They played Peep, Tracy, $uicideboy$, and some classic emo. When they were playing Kill Yourself Part III, and everyone chanted the iconic lines,
always boasting my emotions on how I'm so fucking broken
think I'm joking when I'm talking about blowing my head open
till the moment you walk in and find my body motionless
wrists slit
I wondered how many people in the room, like me, had actually slit their wrists. I felt very alone and very... not, all at the same time.
At 10:40, Wicca came on. He was wearing a really big grey t-shirt, and he looked exactly like he does on Instagram. He was really sweet, and kept saying "thank you" to us, because he hadn't expected so many people in Australia to be fans of his. He played a couple of songs I don't know, but also "High Strangeness", "Hardcore", "Secret Boy", "Corinthiax", etc etc etc.
I didn't feel like I was wasting the experience, being tucked away towards the back not dancing instead of being up front moshing, because it's a common GBC motif in Peep, Wicca, and Tracy songs to be in the back of the club not dancing.
In "Avoid":
You'll only see us in the back
gothboiclique, all black
Fucked up in the back of the club
I cast a sigil in the back of the club
In "Black Clothes":
I was in the background you was in the front
I was in the back of the club turnt up
I just spent the night staring at him, listening to the lyrics, wishing I could write like him, with the black infusion of witchcraft and the everyday and hip hop. I aspire, I aspire.
The last song he played was a song I didn't recognise. Afterwards, people kept chanting "one more song", as people are wont to do at concerts, and he came back out with, to my deep surprise, "Absolute in Doubt" playing. I say surprise, because I'd heard, after seeing a video of him singing it after Peep died, that he'd never perform it live again. But here he was, singing "running up that hill...", and when Peep's part came on, he didn't sing, of course, but everyone else did. Peep's voice soared, and I nearly cried again.
I just really wanna talk to you again
that's how I know imma haunt you in the end
Oh, haunt me, Gus, please haunt me. I wonder if, when I inevitably die too young, I'll haunt Laura, haunt Lachie, haunt Lauren, haunt my parents.
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