Approaching the Warehouse on Broadway, I could feel the looming teenage angst begin to hover over the atmosphere thanks to the mid-2010s sensation gnash. Prior to this show, I knew I had heard of the name “gnash” beforehand, but it was an Instagram ad that immediately brought it all back to me.
This concert was one I decided to go into mostly blind, mostly because I feel like it adds to the experience. But since I already had an impression of him, I pretty much knew what I was about to head into, which was over an hour of Muscial.ly era nostalgia and melancholy. Admittedly, I was not that chronically online at the time, so the fragments of memories I do have of his prime are a bit muffled. But while I may not be the target demographic, the attendees that very much were seemed to be having the time of their lives.
Due to technical difficulties, I may have been about 50 minutes late to the show, but I still got a good glimpse of what the opener, Mark Diamond, had in store. Diamond serenaded the crowd with bare, yet alluring, and romantic acoustic ballads. He began each song with little anecdotes regarding the song’s origins, as well as little tidbits that gave more background to them. Despite only catching the last five or so songs, I can confirm that he was an excellent choice for a Gnash opening act.
The stage was covered with blooming flowers, all of which were handmade by gnash himself, alongside almost all other components of the show, specifically the background visuals and the very outfit gnash wore throughout the concert. Once he said that to the audience, I could tell that he had a special adoration towards his performances and his fans. It’s not too often that you hear artists speak about their own contributions to their shows, especially to this extent. Later, he played a game, aptly titled “Love Me, Love Me Not,” in which he went around the crowd with one of his flowers, going back and forth between “love me” and “love me not,” while picking the petals, with the final petal deciding the mood of the next song, a joyful one for the former option and a more depressing one for the latter. I enjoyed the game and was a little surprised that he had enough happy songs to constitute the existence of that game. Alas, he ended up playing a sad track, much to the content of the audience.
gnash’s setlist consisted of songs that fully encapsulate that established adolescent emotionality he is most known for, all cohesively flowing together as he breezed through the setlist, shuffling between SoundCloud-esque emo rap à la logic and heartfelt acoustics. He had many interactive moments with the crowd, even pointing out specific attendees that didn’t participate in his multiple chants. I was quite hesitant to participate in those, and during one of those moments, I was kind of fearing for my life that he would point at me hiding in the corner. Thankfully, he didn’t, but that did motivate me into being a bit more interactive whenever he called for it afterwards.
I did have one question lingering in my mind: why was there such a low attendance at this concert? It’s not something that necessarily matters in the long run, because five attendees is better than none, but I figured that he would have a little more than the estimated 30 that turned up. I had felt bad because I could tell that he expected a larger turnout, but that sympathy deepened once he said towards the end of the show that somebody handling the show had miscalculated the amount of tickets sold, as it apparently declared the show as “sold out” online.
Despite that mishap, Gnash gave his all for the crowd. Some standout tracks of the show for me were “Autopilot,” “butterfly,” and, of course, “i hate u, i love u (feat. olivia o’brien).” While I haven’t really been somebody that attends pop concerts all that often, this was a pleasant visit, and it made me appreciate Gnash’s artistry in ways I didn’t expect myself to beforehand. If you’re in need of a show with music that transports you to 2016 and a handful of stare-out-the-window-and-pretend-you’re-in-a-music-video vibes, keep an eye out for gnash.