The Yung Lean Concert

Yung Lean's concert in London on Monday was a long time coming in the context of me. This time last year, I was telling Emmeline and Dan that I might be going to Slovakia to see Yung Lean, but that it was getting logistically difficult with the language barrier and I didn't want to ask Chris, who is Slovakian, for help. They both found this cool, which was a nice boost in morale given the social inadequacy I was feeling at that moment, our whole class drinking together in Sophie's apartment before going to karaoke to celebrate the end of term. I ended up having a great night in which I felt like I was cool, and like I belonged, so that added another layer of meaning to the already-complex admiration I have for Yung Lean.

I never ended up going to that concert in Slovakia - it was all just too hard without a car. But Lean eventually announced a proper Europe tour, the Stardust tour, following the release of his latest album of the same name. I don't know why, but I actually didn't buy tickets straight away. I think maybe I assumed I'd have to go by myself, and didn't really want that. (I have in fact gone to a concert alone before, and wrote about it here.) At some point, though, I guess I got more optimistic, because I bought two tickets, and was relieved that it wasn't yet sold out: for some reason it was only then that I realised how sad I'd be if I'd have missed Yung Lean performing in London. Anyway, a few weeks later I was telling Claire about this, and she said something so obvious I couldn't believe I hadn't already considered it: "Why don't you ask Emmeline to go with you?" So I did, and Emmeline was so happy that it made it seem even weirder that I hadn't thought of it.

As I discussed last post, my mental state hasn't been the best recently. One of the reasons I didn't die was not wanting to miss the concert. I set a date, the day after the concert: the 15th. If things weren't better by then, I could die. With the added bonus that the 15th of November 2022 was the 5th anniversary of Peep's death.

Okay, let's just get to the fucking concert already. Emmeline had two other friends also going to the concert, so we had planned to meet up for a drink nearby beforehand. On the tube to Brixton, I was nervous, mostly as a result of social anxiety. I was listening to the 1975, because this is my default state at the moment. Somewhere around Green Park, these two boys got on and sat opposite me. And I could just tell, from what they were wearing, that they were also going to the concert, which bemused me. And sure enough, when I paused my music to stickybeak their conversation, they were discussing one of Lean's albums.

(This is making me realise I haven't yet told you what I was wearing! This was something I had deliberated considerably. In the end, I chose something basic - black cargo pants, a black corset, my velvet puffer jacket, hoop earrings and my hair in two ponytails - because functionality seemed important. Lots of pockets needed, etc. Still, I felt like I looked good and cool, which is also important, because I feel like what I wear dictates my confidence to a significant extent.)

Anyway, of course, the two boys also got off at Brixton. I was mentally preparing myself for the chaos that seems to be a perpetual state of being for that stretch of pavement directly outside Brixton station, but it was actually relatively calm in that particular instance. I walked to a pub called the Trinity Arms, which had been chosen because Emmeline and co had a friend who worked there, and it was close to the O2. Emmeline was at the bar, buying my pint in anticipation of my arrival. And we went outside, where Emmeline's two friends were by the firepit. There was Lauren, whom I've met twice before, and Jesse, whom I've never met before. They were both lovely, of course. It turns out that all of us, on our way there, had seen people that we could deduce were going to the concert based on outfit choice, which I thought was fucking hilarious. We talked about our relationships to Yung Lean, and Lauren said she might cry, which relieved me, because I suspected that I might cry. I told her as much.

We left pretty early, because we weren't sure what time he was coming on and didn't want to miss the start. As we got closer and closer to the O2, the concentration of baggy T-shirts, tattoos, hair dye(, and probably self-harm scars lol) increased accordingly. As I said on my instagram story afterwards, I have never seen so many clearly mentally ill drug addicts (including myself, of course) in my life. It was like a conference!

We were let in and patted down in a very no-nonsense manner. Jesse and Lauren both bought shirts at the merch stand: Lauren, a Stardust one, and Jesse, a classic "Unknown Death 2002" one. We then decided to check our coats, which turned out to be a very wise decision. We went up the stairs to the cloak room, only to be confronted with the sight of a man lying unconscious on the floor and an employee telling us to go round the other way. Which we did fairly promptly.

This being done, we went into the actual stadium, and were immediately hit with an otherworldly vibe. It's quite hard to pinpoint and isolate. There was that excited buzz that there often is immediately before a concert. The stadium, particularly the stage, were lit red, mist was everywhere, and deep, swelling (sometimes classical) music was playing. I want to say that it felt like we were in hell, but I'm aware that that is what several people said about the deathly Travis Scott concert earlier in the year. The whole pit area was already full, which I hadn't ever seen before, not even at Billie Eilish. We wound our way closer to the stage and further into the crowd until we were happy.

We seemed to have timed our entrance perfectly, because Lean came on stage pretty soon after, but not before a weirdly long introduction by some sort of hype man. Anyway, he came out, backlit and still very obscured by mist, wearing what I think was a wizard's coat? There appeared to be a very intricate set design, including a leafless tree and some big fairytale-sized mushrooms, but it was too foggy to see properly.

And he began, and - I didn't know his first song. In fact, I didn't know quite a few of his first songs. This was something that I thought might happen, because, as big a fan as I am of him, he just has so many songs. He has been releasing music pretty consistently for almost ten years now, I guess.

(By the way, something funny that happened at the pub was Lauren asked me if there was a favourite song of his that I was hoping he'd play, and immediately I couldn't think of a single Yung Lean song. Out of his ENTIRE oeuvre. Classic.)

Anyway, at some point, early on, he played Bliss, and the entire crowd erupted. I was quite surprised, given that Bliss is one of his most recent releases. Emmeline was hoping he'd bring FKA Twigs on for the song, but alas he did not. Some other songs he played were in this first half were: Leanworld, Smirnoff Ice (Lauren's favourite!!), Hurt (it's quite funny hearing an entire arena of people screaming, "LOUIS DUFFEL BAG FILLED WITH HEROIN!").

(An Interlude About Drugs: I was not on and did not bring any drugs, even though ideally I would have liked to. This is for reasons it is not my place to articulate. It was, however, an absolute drug fest in there, as I knew it would be. There were people doing conspicuous keys, and several people lit up joints, making the stadium even hazier, and it must have hotboxed the place, because I started feeling a little high.)

He had a slight intermission at some point, which I thought would be some sort of thematic turning point: I thought the mist would lift, and the set design would be revealed. But this did not happen. After a couple of minutes, he came back (if he had not just in fact retreated into the fog slightly), and played "bender++girlfriend". Notably, very sweetly, there was a couple in front of me, and as Lean sang "she fell asleep on my arm" in the song's second movement, she had her head on her boyfriend's arm. 

Next was "Red Bottom Sky", another song of his that I hadn't realised was so popular, being as it is from a more recent album. (I suppose, though, that it's not so recent anymore. I suppose, though, that I listened to it first when I was listening all the way through the album on its release date, on a bus from Sydney to Canberra, and that was 2017, five years ago.) Emmeline told me later that it was the first song of his that she'd ever heard, which surprised me.

After that was "Ginseng Strip 2002", arguably his most iconic song, so I was excited for this. Appropriately, people went OFF. There was a lot of jumping and shoving and moshing, which was very fun. Lots of people had to leave the mosh, I guess because it was so intense. They were dripping with sweat. A few of the people who tapped out were these TINY girls, and I don't know how they survived for as long as they did up front. 

I was very glad he played "Gatorade", because it's the first song of his that I ever was obsessed with, way back in summer 2015. I'd seen Dan Howell (LOL), who I was obsessed with at the time, wearing a sad boys t-shirt, so I did some research. I listened to Lean songs until I found one that I liked.  I listened to it constantly, then went back and listened to the other ones that I hadn't thought much of at first, and became obsessed with them, too.

During "Yoshi City", I realised that I still do not know whether the lyrics are "I'm a lonely cloud" or "I'm a lonely clown". I've been meaning to look it up for about seven years now.

One of the last songs he played was "Hotel in Minsk". I love that song. I find it hard to get into a lot of jl127 songs, but this one is one of my favourites. I've described the feeling it gives me here, and made a very amateur video over it. His singing is and was Not Very Good, which is of course the point, and something that I love about the song. I love weak voices in music, particularly weak male voices. Some examples are the Killers, Bright Eyes, and of course, Lil Peep. It's something about the urgency of expression overpowering self-consciousness. Which could also explain a lot of the shit I put on here.

He said thank you, London, and left, and I thought that was that, but Emmeline said that he'd come back on and play Kyoto, she was sure of it. I don't know if she knew this because she looked up the setlist earlier, or because she's such a seasoned concert-goer, or because she has inside knowledge on performance strategy, but in any case she was right. A lot more intense moshing, which only got worse when he played a second encore song - Miami Ultras. My angry song. I got an elbow to the mouth at one point, but it was worth it. And then it was over.

Emmeline and I found Jesse and Lauren, who had moved closer into the crowd throughout the course of the show, and we got our coats. The unconscious man was no longer there, but there was a boy sitting on the floor with his back against a wall, slurring "we're gonna go out after this" to no-one in particular. Good luck with that, buddy, it's a Monday. Going up the stairs, I saw the boys who had been on the tube with me, but they did not see me. We left the building and the cold air was so refreshing that I didn't put on my coat for a while. I don't think I actually sweat that much - I think it was more a case of having lots of other people's sweat on me, hahaha. Gross.

Outside the venue, there were some people selling bootleg Yung Lean merch. They had T-shirts laid on the ground. I was equally intrigued by the two possibilities this presented: either there are people who, as a business model, look up what musicians are playing at the O2 and print shirts accordingly and taut their wares outside the venue every night, OR, there are people who specifically have Yung Lean merch and follow him around the world to illegally sell T-shirts outside his venues, like profit-driven groupies. 

Anyway, Jesse and Lauren took a bus. We hugged goodbye, and Emmeline and I jumped on the tube, amongst many exhausted-looking Yung Lean fans. We discussed how the demographic of people on the Victoria line at ~11pm every night must vary greatly depending on what kind of artist was playing at the Brixton O2 that night. A good documentary premise, perhaps. It reminds me of a documentary that Karen (an actually documentary-maker) wanted to film, about the different waves of workers and Londoners in general that board the tube as the day progresses from 5am, to 6am, to 10am...

When I was eventually on the tube on my own, I sat, listening to the 1975, of course, and thinking about the concert. The more I thought about it, the more fun I realised I had had. I walked home from the station nattering excitedly to my mum in Malaysia about it, stopping on the way home at the Balkan store for a snack. I showered, smoked, and slept.