words and photos by Dakota Fine
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Robyn played Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore on Tuesday night. And she came all the way from Sweden to sing us pop songs! She’s like the new (old) Lady Gaga. No seriously, she’s been around since the mid-nineties, she had hits back then (and now) — we swear it.
Rewind for a second though. I decided weeks ago I wanted to shoot this show. Robyn’s been steadily gaining traction in the US lately, and I have to say it feels like she’s a on an upswing. Okay so, like all things on an upswing, gays are the early adopters — like a residential neighborhood on the cusp of being trendy, the gays move in first to push it (in this case Robyn) right into the mainstream — and so it’s always smart to join in on the fun. So when the BYGays wrote me to tell me the Pocket Gays were organizing a short bus to Baltimore for the Robyn concert, I figured it would be a good idea for me to ride along to capture the hilarity that would surely ensue.
The lewd conduct was so bankable in fact that the BYGays instructed me to include this in their “Gays Behaving Badly” series, even though this is supposed to be about music. No this post is clearly more than just about the music — this is like a gay hipster fight, you just have to witness it to understand: (4 Lokos anyone?!?)
Okay, just one more gay hipster fight… I found this one courtesy of Perez Hilton, he even called his post “Gays Behaving Badly!“… has Perez been reading BYT?!?
Back to the music, we caught Diamond Rings, the second opening act. He had an impersonated German accent going on, even though he’s from Toronto. Musically I can’t say much, but he was wearing gold lamé pants a feather mask and a leather jacket.
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Also, my boy Johnny Bebop and John O’Regan (below, right) look related possibly, or maybe they just have similar tastes when it comes to style.
To the delight of the masses Robyn took to the stage more or less on time. Her performance was solid, although I thought unremarkable. I’m pretty sure she had a recorded back-up track which made her performance, though energetic, a bit stale. I didn’t feel like she deviated at all from the recorded versions of her songs, which to me defeats the purpose of playing live. I want to see something different in the live show, something that makes me do a double take. Like, “oh wow, that’s different, I can tell I’m hearing a live performance,” rather than the very little crowd interaction we got on Tuesday night (I know she’s Swedish, but c’mon she sings in English and we all know the Swedes speak English… ).
No doubt though, she made the crowd bob and weave, so mission accomplished, thumbs up Robyn. The lady makes great dance music. The gays we thrilled. Many scored. Not all made it back to the short bus, and thusly their own beds. Hopefully everyone made it back to DC safely eventually (er, today).
Now go enjoy the photos.
