Keshi at Roadrunner, 3/14/23
A powerful late-season winter storm wasn’t enough to dampen the spirits of Keshi’s Boston audience on one mid-March day. “People have been lining up since 3,” a venue staff member told me after I inquired about the crowd. That sort of behaviour isn’t unheard of for an artist who commands as much of a young & devoted following as Keshi, sure, but I’d only expect that of fans during the spring & summer months. Considering the brutally chilly and sleet-inundated conditions, seeing the crowd snake around Roadrunner was incredibly surprising, but that only serves as a testament to the adoration that Keshi’s fans have for him.
Keshi opened the night with “GET IT,” the opening track from his latest album GABRIEL. Alternating between croons and slick sing-raps, Keshi boasted about his hard-earned success with braggadocious flair, “got my bag right, on my own time, now these bitches tongue-tied.” Lest we would be led to believe that the fame has gone to his head, as Keshi ended the song with a meta self-reflection: “you don't even know which one you are, do you? Having trouble telling them apart.” He followed up with “less of you.” His falsetto flew atop the lulling acoustic guitar that forms the backbone of the track, and he even held a few sustained high notes that sent the crowd wild. And the slower, subdued “SOMEBODY” was straight up sensual, giving Keshi’s smooth vocals a chance to shine.
The rest of Keshi’s set was a mish-mash of his deep catalogue, combining favourites from GABRIEL, bandaids, always, skeletons, and even 2018’s THE REAPER EP. The crowd sang, swayed, and screamed along at every turn, matching his energy throughout the entire show. He also peppered the set full of unexpected surprises. Noticing a member of the crowd holding a sign that read “it’s my birthday,” Keshi initiated and led the rest of the audience in a brief rendition of Happy Birthday. He played an unreleased track, “kiss me right,” integrating a playful call-and-response part into his performance. “kiss me right” was lively, its energy bolstered by a particularly energetic backing drum beat. And perhaps most importantly, Keshi even took off his shirt after playfully remarking that “it seems we have made a great mistake by convincing you all that if you cheer loud enough, I'll take off my shirt." His bandmates joined him in kind, fist-bumping as they laughed it off and returned to their respective stations.
Other highlights included “UNDERSTAND” – which he noted was absent from the EU and Asian legs of his current tour – a minimal acoustic piano ballad that highlighted the angelic qualities of his voice, the short and sweet “MILLI,” and “skeletons,” another stripped back track which saw Keshi, sans backing band, on an electric guitar, recalling how his younger self had felt torn between chasing the dream of becoming a musician vs the safety and respectability of his former nursing career.
Keshi began to bring the night to a close with “ANGEL,” in which he picked up an electric guitar and performed a particularly exhilarating solo. Keshi and his band exited the stage, reappearing shortly thereafter to rally the crowd for their one-song encore, “2 soon,” which was augmented by the addition of a confetti cannon.
At one point during his set, Keshi took a moment to confess what playing in Boston meant to him: "I've never talked about how badly I wanted to come live here… I wanted to study at Berklee so bad, but my parents said no-no, and wouldn't even let me audition!" Now, standing in front of a completely sold-out venue, he left the crowd with one final impassioned speech: “I can take care of my family now, you guys don't know how much that means to me – thank you so much." Admittedly, I had come into the show with surface-level knowledge of Keshi’s discography. Hell, I’m not even an avid alt-pop and alt-R&B enjoyer. But even I was blown away by the quality of the show that Keshi and his band put on – after thoroughly enjoying myself that evening, it became pretty apparent to me that Keshi deserves every bit of his current success and fame.
