Perfume Genius at the Royale, 4/5/22

Up until April 5th, 2022, I have never cried at a concert. Don’t get me wrong, though; it’s not like I haven’t cried before while listening to music (or that I can’t cry at all— I like to think that I’m good at crying. I did it just last week, in fact). But I’ve been to many a concert over the years, and most of those concerts were with artists I had a deep emotional connection with, and for whatever reason, I found myself unable to produce a tear. And just to drive the point home, 90% of the time when I cry, it’s often prompted by the music I’m listening to. You’d think there’d be some sort of Pavlovian response at that point. But I’ve made it through sets from the likes of Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, Mitski, and even a National set featuring Phoebe Bridgers. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. I’ve been that one person in the pit stony-eyed while literally everyone else is sobbing around me, and then I’ve been that person again. I envied them, I think; convinced myself that I was lesser than them for not crying. I could nod my head to the beat as much as I wanted, but because of their tears, they were feeling the song on a level unknown to me. Call it an emotional blockage, call it nonfunctional tear ducts; diagnose me with whatever you think is wrong with me, if anything at all. The truth of the matter is that I had never cried at a concert, until the night of April 5th, 2022. Because when I saw Mike Hadreas as Perfume Genius perform with Hand Habits opening at the Royale, I cried not once, not twice, but three separate times. And for three separate reasons, too. 

What was different this time, you may ask? Well, in hindsight, there were a lot of factors. It didn’t help that I was stressed from schoolwork and responsibilities piling up. It certainly didn’t help that I had been friendzoned by a romantic interest literally the night before. But above all, I think the nail in the coffin was Perfume Genius’ music itself; music that speaks directly to my experience as a gay, depressed, hopeless romantic. And walking into the Royale that fateful night and surveying the crowd, I could tell that I was surrounded by people cut from similar fabric. The energy in the room was quiet yet electric as we waited for the show to start, staring at the stage decked out in gray, shimmery curtains, spotlights, and an ornate chair off to the side (As Mickey Mouse would say, “It’s a surprise tool that will help us later”). 

Meg Duffy of Hand Habits took to the stage first, armed only with a steaming cup of tea and their electric guitar, playing some tracks off of their new album Aquamarine and leaving the audience spellbound by their emotionally resonant and sparse playing. Almost a little too spellbound; Hand Habits even took a second to comment on how quiet the crowd was being (“But I think I know why”, they said with a wink. “Shoutout PFLAG.”)

As Hand Habits left, I took a second to refresh myself with Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, the album that Perfume Genius was touring for. Admittedly, while I do listen to his music, it had been a hot second since I last heard his latest release in full. I remember it being extremely good, but in the way that one remembers a good meal they had a couple years ago: the details aren’t immediately clear. But as I scrolled through the album on Spotify, checking off track names I recognised, it became very clear to me that I was in no way prepared for the emotional onslaught I was about to endure. Which, okay, I said the same thing about Lucy Dacus and Mitski, and I made it through those, so this wouldn’t be too different, right? 

The lights dimmed, and the members of his five-piece band walked out first (which included Duffy on guitar and boyfriend and longtime collaborator Alan Wyffels on keyboard), and then Mike Hadreas himself walked out to the tune of “Your Body Changes Everything”. Or more accurately, sauntered. To write about a Perfume Genius concert is to replace all of the basic action verbs with something more flashy. Hadreas didn’t dance on stage during the set; he writhed and slinked, spun and shimmied. He didn’t toy with the mic stand; he cradled it in his arms as he got down on both knees. He didn’t just sing; he performed that track, with a level of theatricality and queerness I had thought previously unknowable. With that first song, he immediately set the mood for the rollercoaster that would come. 

From a journalistic perspective, it’s a good thing that my three separate instances of crying happened pretty spaced out throughout the set. Even better is the fact that I wrote down when and why I started crying, which is going to make writing the rest of this relatively easy. So without further ado, here’s the List Of Reasons I Cried During The Perfume Genius Concert:

Instant #1 came a little into the set, after some more cuts off of Set My Heart (“Without You”, as well as particularly explosive renditions of “Wreath” and “Describe”). The band filed out as Hadreas sat down at the keyboard and announced that he was going to play some slower songs. This should have been my cue to run, but instead I stayed still, awestruck as he began to tenderly sing the opening lyrics to “Normal Song”, following that with other slower songs like “Katie” and “Hood”, songs that all deal with the universal challenges queer men face in today’s society. Perfume Genius has a way of poignantly and succinctly displaying issues of shared trauma and secrecy in a way that leaves the listener eviscerated and naked, and by the end of that three-song-run, I was wiping tears out from my mask. In that moment, I not only felt those songs, I was those songs; the girl in “Normal Song”, the boy in “Learning”, and the ticking bomb in “Hood”. I have been all of those things before, and those specific songs had a way of pulling those memories and emotions out of me, which I think is a testament to Hadreas’ songwriting abilities. 

Instant #2 came soon after, when the rest of the band came out and launched right into the joyful “On The Floor”, a song whose bouncing, upbeat tempo masks the desperation and addiction of the narrator’s crush-turned-obsession, which ironically lifted the mood of everyone in the building as we jumped around. After a quick introduction of the band, Hadreas immediately went into the one-two punch of “Slip Away” and “Otherside”, two songs from his album No Shape as well as two songs I would not recommend experiencing live unless you’ve consulted a doctor. Something about those songs back to back had me suddenly start to think about how, as queer people, we tend to speak on the oppression that comes with being openly queer more than we speak on the joy and liberation that comes with living freely as yourself, as well as how important it is to create those spaces. Letting my head bang wildly with the beat, I felt like I had finally found that space; thus the tears began to flow. 

Instant #3 came during the darker, more abstract section of the set, where Perfume Genius got to show off his performance abilities in an impressive display of interpretive dance. To the backdrop of “Some Dream”, “My Body,” “Nothing At All”, and a forthcoming single titled “Photograph”, he began to contort and twist over the ornate chair that he brought to the center of the stage and then yards of tulle from offstage, pulling it between his legs like it was bursting out of him, eventually letting the fabric swallow him whole, singing and screaming into the mic when it called for it. The lights flashed red and blue and purple, obscuring his face in dramatic chiaroscuro shadows as he tilted his face upwards towards the heavens. It was transformative, it was ritualistic, it was unabashedly queer, and it was beautiful. I felt like I could pull so many deeper, hidden meanings from that portion of the show, and all of them would be right. I’m not ashamed to say I cried a little at that part too as I let the sublimity of that moment pass over me.

To say I went on an emotional Tilt-a-Whirl that night would be a gross understatement. Perfume Genius even commented towards the end of the set that he could feel the energy, and I could tell that he meant it too. There was something in the air at the Royale; something powerful and larger than life. I found that that something would stay with me long after the encore performance of “Grid” and fan-favorite “Queen”, long after Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius waved his goodbyes and exited the stage, letting the band play its final, exuberant notes into the crowd, and long after the rest of the concertgoers and I spilled out into the breezy Fenway air. While I never did figure out what that “something” was, I found peace with that particular unknown. You see, emotions are pretty complex. They make you laugh and cry and scream and grit your teeth and blush. They make you want to bang your head against the wall. They make you dry-eyed at some concerts and a leaky faucet at others. But there is a humanity to feeling emotions, and I think that is what makes Perfume Genius (and by extension, his concerts) such a thrill-ride: he isn’t afraid to take the ugliest emotions and experiences and put them into song, and in doing so he refuses to look at life and the human condition and the random crapshoot that is the universe as anything other than the mess it is. His music feels like a hand that reaches out to the ostracized, the bullied, and the broken, and it says that life may not and probably will not never be easy for you, but you won’t do it alone. You are beat down and bruised but look: you are standing here among thousands of people who are all screaming the same lyrics with the same fervor that burns in their hearts, crying the same tears that for so long have been blinked back. How beautiful it is to be together in this moment, in this space that we made, but it won’t be here for much longer. So take a second. Breathe. In and out. Then let go.