[GHOSTWRITER POST] Kitty (Pryde) @ Vancouver's Fortune Sound Club 23/03/13

***This is the first of a new series called GHOSTWRITERS, where contributors from other colleges, radio stations, blogs, or walks of life write posts for WRGW. Enjoy this one by Vancouver’s own Alastair Martin (& check out his blog here)!

Courtesy of Fortune Sound Club

Thank god for the internet. Not because I get to creep on the girl with those empty blackout eyes at whom I awkwardly stared during that party that one time. Not because it makes the process of essay writing much easier than it was for our parents. And definitely not because of porn. I’m thanking god for the internet because without it we wouldn’t have Kitty (Pryde). Sans internet, I wouldn’t have witnessed this adorably cute train wreck of a show. Hailing from Daytona Beach/Tumblr, Kitty made a stop at Vancouver’s Fortune Sound Club on her Pls Let It Be Warm tour to promote her sophomore EP, D.A.I.S.Y. Rage. With only six stops, this mini-tour fits the mini-success that internet fame entails.

Seattle-based Ladyfriend kicked things off to a sparse crowd, albeit one that included a number of attendees who showed up just for them. Despite being an odd choice to precede Kitty, their familiar, quirky male-female duo charm forced heads to bob and feet to tap. What was supposed to be an early show was already set back two hours, so Ladyfriend’s performance was brief. There wasn’t much time for that awkwardly charming banter indie groups bestow upon us while they tune their instruments between songs, so I felt like I didn’t really get to know them. If you like guys and girls and ukuleles, give these two a Google.

The second and final opener, Vancouver’s own Young Braised, continued the musical foreplay with some semi-weird hip hop. If Lil B was white and less of a goof, he’d sound sort of like Young Braised.  “Snack City” elicited a couple of chuckles from the crowd, which was beginning to grow, although still far from full capacity. Braised looked and performed as if he had a rough night that turned into a rough morning. Toque ajar, skinny jeans sagging, he muddled around Fortune’s modest stage rapping about “real hip hop sh*t” and hashtags. At one point I thought he was planking, but it turned out he just wanted to lie down, similar to how a cat might muster the last of its strength to crawl into the sunny spot on the carpet to die. Lackadaisical? Yes. Aloof? Yes. Was that a problem? Not really. It was very Vancouver.

My patience was beginning to run a tad thin during the space between Young Braised’s set and Kitty’s. The only thing that staved me from pure annoyance was seeing her coyly dance her way up to the stage to Frank Ocean’s “Thinking About You” between the two opener’s sets. Alas, Kitty finally clocked in. The venue was nearly full, with the fake ID crowd approaching what I can safely say was close to fifty percent. What came next (and I’m surprised I’m saying this) was oddly enchanting. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for girls in stockings, or maybe it’s because Kitty has carefully (or not so carefully) engineered her image to be that of the archetypal, idyllic young woman. If any audience members were still frustrated with the show’s postponement and the openers’ irrelevance or lack of enthusiasm, Kitty obliterated any trace of that. She fumblingly took to the stage, and the club was “turnt-up” from there on out. Kitty pumped out songs from both her Tumblr days and her most recent EP, and who sang along to what differentiated the die-hard fans from the casual ones. But if one was not belting out every word of “Okay Cupid,” they were the minority. Even the once-bored looking boyfriends accompanying their significant other to the show raised their PBR’s in momentary euphoria. Her set was short, but hey, what else do you expect from one of our ADD/internet generation’s spokespersons? It’s safe to say Kitty has a cult following, but I may be doing her some injustice in saying that. It’s 2013, and for all I know, internet might kill the radio star. My only complaint about her set was that she didn’t wear a prom dress. Either way, Kitty, you vexed me. You vexed all of us.

-Alastair Martin

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