The North American Tour: FIDLAR

 

Julie Ye / FIDLAR / The Observatory North Park / October 19, 2018

Kicking off the second leg of The North American tour, FIDLAR rocked the stage at The Observatory North Park on Thursday, October 18th to promote their upcoming new album. The California-based skate punk band gave an animated and action-packed performance while keeping energy levels high throughout the entire night.

The southern California punk group, The Side Eyes, was the first opener of the night. With unfiltered and raw lyrics of hardcore anger and short punk rock anthems, coupled with lead Astrid McDonald’s fiery on-stage presence, the quartet delivered an explosive performance that set the tone for the rest of the night to come. Although they may be a relatively young band, they are able to play with grit and spunk while successfully capturing the 80’s and 90’s rock influence into their music.

If I could describe the next act and their music in one way, I would say they are a hybrid of Sia and The Smashing Pumpkins. Dilly Dally encompasses all of the elements of 90’s grunge and is all about big moods. From unique raspy whisper-scream vocals to a dark melodic ambiance, the Toronto-based group created a vibe that was ominous, yet still beautifully alluring.

As the lights dimmed and the flickers of four television screens illuminated the stage, it signaled that the moment we were all waiting for was here. Waves of fans flocked towards the stage as FIDLAR began their set with their recent single, “Alcohol,” to excite the audience. Security were forced to buckle down as the crowd went wild and fans immediately began crowd-surfing towards the stage.

The energy only seemed to magnify as the night went on. Multiple mosh circles were formed in different parts of the room, creating contained yet chaotic havoc. Lead singer, Zac Carper, addressed the topic of sexual harassment and created a space for a girls only mosh pit during one of the song. He states, “No dudes allowed in this mosh pit,” and advises females to kick dudes out of the circle if they see one jumping in.

The stand-out song of the night was “West Coast.” As one of their more popular songs, fans excitedly ran into the crowd to form one of the most hectic mosh pits of the night; at this point of the night, the circle of excitedly thrashing fans only seemed to double in size, accounting for a majority of the crowd. As shoes and drinks flew up into the air and articles of clothing were waved around, it was one of the moments of the night that most people will remember.

If mosh-pits, crowd surfing, rock anthems, and headbanging seems like a good time to you, I highly recommend catching FIDLAR at the second leg of their North American Tour.

Tickets for The North American Tour are $25