For Edition 25, Rich Walker goes down to the White Hotel for the second in our non existent ‘out and about’ series, to catch Rainy Miller, Alpha Maid and Slauson Malone 1, in the N/OM showcase, all soundtracked by our AOTY winners Space Afrika. Could it be more Laughing Stock?
A genuine emotional connection can be an all consuming, overwhelming experience. Love immediately springs to mind, but so does grief, anger, or the beauty of art. When someone or something connects with you, it can be an intense period, heightened emotions, thoughts flying. It can be a positive experience; it can be spiralling negative. But after these two shitshow years, any feeling, any connection, any genuine human emotion is a relief, a welcome firing of synapses and flooding of chemicals, and understanding that we are not alone or isolated, or at least there are others who are too.
After the pitch perfect DJ stylings of Space Afrika fade away (shout out for playing Dawuna’s ‘The Ape Prince’), through the thick fog of The White Hotel an agitated man in a puffer jacket shouts, hood up, can of Budweiser clutched to his chest, making his way through the crowd to the stage. This is Rainy Miller. This is a man who for the next 45 minutes or so will grab me by the synapses and flood my brain with the kind of chemicals that leave me dazed, too much emotion, overwhelmed. This is a performance of such raw intensity, of such pure emotion, of such anger and pain, that it’s astonishing that he can ever do this more than once. It’s fractured, fragile, fearless. Miller is a man who is impossible to tear your eyes away from. He has me in his grip, in his spiral, and I can’t (and maybe don’t want to) get out. He stalks the stage, he stalks the floor, he mumbles into people’s faces before exploding through the mic, he squats, curled up in a protective ball, hand covering his face as his heavily auto tuned voice provides the emotional core amongst the distorted beats, the distorted heavenly voices in the mix (nothing is straight here, everything is skewed, off kilter, metamorphosised), the sudden outpourings of pure screams. A voice in the haze declares ‘misery is as misery does’.
Behind him there is a tear in fabric that separates the stage from the bar, and the chasm glows red, a gateway to Miller’s hell perhaps. Here’s Blackhaine, another ball of emotion and anger, spitting furiously as Miller shouts ‘you’re in my system’ and joins the crowd to watch. There’s a passage of unadulterated auto tuned beauty, and Miller is done. Mic dropped, he storms off, straight up the White Hotel stairs to the protection of the back room, his entire being left out amongst the mouth agaped crowd, adding to the already heavy White Hotel atmosphere. He states later on Instagram that he’s been crying before and after these shows. I want to put my arm around him and tell him it’s all going to be ok, only I’m not sure it is. I’m stunned, trying to contextualise what I’ve just witnessed. One of the bravest, rawest, emotionally overwhelming performances I’ve seen.
How does one follow that? Slauson Malone 1 gives it a good go, but I can’t concentrate properly, Miller’s performance is haunting me. There’s death metal screams, writhing in the crowd, a cellist who throws himself against the metal shutters to create thunder, some Future-esque RnB trap…it’s a lot, and it’s as unfocused as my brain, but there’s a lot to enjoy, not least the gorgeous cello and acoustic guitar passages.
He’s still there, with me. Rainy Miller has forged a perhaps unbreakable emotional connection with me, and for the rest of the night and into tomorrow it will stay with me, buried in my psyche. It will somehow change me in a way I’m not sure of yet. The chemicals will wear off, but the feeling will stay long within.
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