‘Twas the first day of March, but rain took plunder.
Diet Cig was the headliner, and they took the thunder!
Alex Luciano, Diet Cig
Great Grandpa was one of the openers for the sold-out show, originating from Seattle, Washington. With grunge influence, vocalist Alex Menne sings and screams their “snack rock” sound complaining of social constructs, entitled guys, and zombies. Menne introduced a song by feeling the need to tell the crowd not to touch anyone without their permission. These “words of wisdom” had the crowd silent, with only a few people vocally supporting the gesture. Knowing that this was a standing show and people would obviously be touched was an unnecessary ploy to shove down people’s throats.
Great Grandpa
The band played songs like the slow, melodic tunes of 28 J’s L8r, a song explaining Menne stopped smoking weed because she thought her friends were zombies going to eat her to good old-fashioned grunge jammers like Teen Challenge with lyrics: “And I drip when I swell/out in my empty room/I only wanted you so bad”. Alex’s vocal range was impressive, from soft soprano to shrieking from yelling, all smoothly transitioned into one another.
Other band members include guitarist and vocalist Patrick Goodwin, bassist Carrie Miller, drummer Cam LaFlam, and guitarist Dylan Hanwright. Great Grandpa’s songs are all completely different from one another in sound either in tempo or mood, but the differences from one song to the next to create some sort of beautiful planned chaos: but that’s grunge isn’t it? Their newest release, Plastic Cough came out July of last year and can be found here. There’s still time to check them out on tour, playing in Philly on Saturday.
Diet Cig took the stage and spoke of being consensual, friendship, love, and telling your ex off. Alex Luciano, vocals/guitar, was covered with so much glitter, you could see it all the way from the back of the venue. She posted on the band’s Instagram about bringing extra glitter for her-she wasn’t kidding. Luciano began the show with Sixteen, a song about her boyfriend at the time with the same name as hers and how he slut-shamed her. She danced around on stage with her infamous high kicks, yelled at the lights tech to let her see the crowd’s “beautiful faces”, and sang with so much soul you can feel it.
Diet Cig
Diet Cig is a pop-punk duo from New Paltz, New York, with Noah Bowman on drums and Luciano on vocals and guitar founded in 2015. Their first EP, Over Easy, was released soon after, with songs of the scene days and problems young adults face. The band’s message is about empowerment, rebellion, and vulnerability. With cutesy delivery, you would think that young women and teenage girls would be their main demographic, but at least half of the crowd at Elsewhere was males, if not more. Luciano criticised the white-cis-male multiple times throughout the night. She seemed to throw feminism into everyone’s face.
Both bands’ stage presence was impeccable.They had high energy, commanded your attention, and criticized the bad in the world from being touched inappropriately to our politicians’ corruptions. What these bands stood for was having fun with rock and roll while not taking shit from anybody. Though both Great Grandpa and Diet Cig were excessive with their feminism and peace agendas, their performances were sensational. Catch them and Spook School until March 3 at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. Tickets can be found here.
To see videos from this show go check out Stars & Scars!
Laila Abuelhawa 