Women pull out the wins at first Neumos show after the pandemic

Antonioni // Photo by Jeffrey Martin

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The weirdest thing about the first show at Neumos after quarantine was that it started on time.

Other than that, it was WEIRDLY (yes, capitals, not italics) just like any other show I’ve been to. According to the security guard I talked to, the venue almost reached capacity. People stood, maskless, shoulder to shoulder. I was brushed up against by at least three people. The bands made the same comments they’ve made for years about tipping your bartender. They did talk about how it was good to be back, but it felt like they could have been referencing a couple months off between tours instead of a year+ of a worldwide pandemic. It was WEIRD how not weird everyone was. Like, shouldn’t we all be freaking out — either in social anxiety or excitement — at least a little bit? Everyone was just so…normal, and that was WEIRD!!!!

Oh, wait. There was one more thing that wasn’t weird: The white, male, indie rock headliner.

There’s been a lot of talk over the pandemic about things people want to change about the music industry — from better pay to more diverse representation. It legitimately frightened me that people were so complacent at the first show back because if we slide so readily back into standing shoulder to shoulder, who’s to say what other patterns (like putting white men on a pedestal) we might also slide back into? It’s not that there was anything wrong with Spirit Award headlining in and of itself, but the easy acquiescence of everything we were doing Before freaked me the fuck out.

It’s been a year without shows, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for every single person there that night. Spirit Award put on a fine show that, by the end, got the remaining crowd dancing (which can be hard to do in Seattle). A host of talented musicians made special appearances, including Ed Brooks on pedal steel, William Goldsmith (Sunny Day Real Estate, Foo Fighters) on drums, and Jessica Dobson (Deep Sea Diver) on guitar. But, how could they not have put on a fine show? Frontman Daniel Lyon is a 6-foot+ tall, good looking white man with an ear for a wall of sound. In a room, let alone on a stage, it would be hard not to be captivated by him.

Meanwhile, though, the women who opened the show put on a kickass time.

Black Ends, fronted by Nicolle Swims, who, by the way, is one of the warmest people I have ever met, opened the show with everything an opener should be. Paradoxical to her offstage personality, Swims’s onstage persona is dark and quiet. The band’s sound is darkly brooding yet also ragely entertaining. They barely talked to the audience, but it somehow added to the experience, pulling us into their world instead of creating a wall between us. Their set struck me as something Muse would have put on in their earlier days, giving zero fucks about what they “should” be doing and just diving deep into their own minds and sharing that with the crowd. When they ended their 30-minute set, the crowd was chanting for one more song — a rare Seattle feat.

The middle set was brought up by Antonioni, a shoegaze-y surf-rock group fronted by Sarah Pasillas. The crowd was thickest for their set, and rightfully so. Pasillas reminds me of the bowl of Good & Plenty’s my great aunt used to leave out at family gatherings. Even though the brisket was the main course, I’d always find myself gravitating, unconsciously, back to that tiny glass bowl on the coffee table. Pasillas is sweetly alluring and slightly mysterious, just like black licorice. You’re not really sure why you’re eating it, but you’re also not going to stop until the entire bowl is gone. If only they had had those cat shirts for sale, I would have bought one (or three).

During Antonioni’s set, I got more comfortable milling about on the main floor after my initial tentativeness to return to large crowds. By the time their set ended, I was ready to rock with Spirit Award. But what I felt instead was a slight groove mixed with a need to pretend I was as into the set as all of the white men dancing around me.

Chong the Nomad sold out Neumos’s smaller basement venue Barboza, and I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if she had played upstairs instead or if the crowd wouldn’t have thinned by half (as it did midway through Spirit Award’s set) if Antonioni had headlined the show instead of being the middle act. Spirit Award, I love you (from one Dan about another, Dan Lyon is a genuinely great dude). Neumos, I love you. But I was hoping the first show back after the pandemic would instill the same sense of diversity I’d found in the online music community instead of the nagging feeling that women still belong in the shadows. (Quite literally, Dobson, whose band has toured with Death Cab For Cutie, spent her entire time on stage in the corner in shadow. Even so, the track she played on was the only track that got me moving consistently.)

I hate ending with “in conclusion,” but unfortunately if any article ever did, this piece calls for it, so: In conclusion, it’s amazing live music is back. I’m genuinely so excited. But all anyone has been talking about the last few months has been not lurching back into the patterns we came to know in 2019, and I’m here to call it out: 2019 needed more women in the limelight, and I’m not about to not say anything when I see this year having the same problem. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry to be a downer on this first show back. I wish I could sit here and give everyone props for playing their first show in a year and a half (and I do!!), but I also can’t sit idly by and just let things return to “normal” (plus, there are already enough articles out praising the night). I know a lot of people won’t like this article. But I don’t care, because I only have one goal right now: to make hindsight 2021.