The question on the mind of so many artists, managers and labels in our current era is how do you turn a single viral hit into full-blown stardom? Well, it helps when the artist behind the viral hit has a wild, charismatic and exuberantly enthusiastic stage presence and multiple albums’ worth of searingly honest, immensely hooky songs.
Missouri’s honestav entered the chat with his powerful, hip-hop-meets-pop-punk-meets-southern rock gold-selling single “Overdose.” The artist has since become a streaming juggernaut, and gained co-signs from fellow musical polyglots MGK and Mod Sun. If you read our review of his new album Sweet American Boy, you’ll. know we here at the Indy Review are big fans of it. So the question now was how well did the artist bring these songs to the stage?
I arrived at the Regent theater early to catch the buzzed-about rock band Untitled. I didn’t know anything about them, and was surprised when four kids who looked like they were probably still in high school took the stage. The Los Angeles quartet (who are actually all between 18-19 according to what the singer said) managed to rack up over 58 million streams on Spotify alone for their debut single “Restless”, and they clearly had a fanbase in the audience.
From the first song, I could tell that these were kids most likely raised on their Gen-X parents’ Nirvana records, as the grunge influence in their sound was heavy. While tracks like “Restless” had plodding, shoegaze element to it, many of their songs fed off the soft-loud-soft dynamic that Cobain did so well. Now, the band admitted that this was their first ever show in a big venue, and given that and their age, I’m prone to give a lot of grace when discussing their performance and songs. They’re still young, still learning, and still have time to really find their own sound amongst their influences. As a live unit, it took them all a bit to get comfortable on the stage. Kudos to their bassist who showed the first signs of real life, clearly having fun being on stage and getting himself moving and interacting with the crowd.
The rest of the group eventually shook off any nerves and let themselves loose a bit. Some of the tracks they played were still unreleased from their forthcoming album, and probably will need some time before the band locks them in for their lives sets. “Say it Again” had elements of Weezer’s “Say it Ain’t So” mixed in with its muddy vocals, and I did enjoy their closer; their most recent single “Nothing Good.” While again clearly inspired by Nirvana and other 90’s grunge acts, the track packed in some good energy and ferocity. The band may be Untitled, but as they continue to grow and develop their sound and live stage performance, they definitely won’t be unknown.
I love that honestav brought a young band like Untitled out on tour, and from what I heard, the east coast leg of his tour will have an actual high school student opening for him (until he has to return to school). It’s one thing to say you support young artists, and another thing to actually give them a spot opening for you.
At 9:00pm sharp, honestav and his band took the stage following a video intro. He led the charged-up crowd in swinging their hands back and forth as he went into “How I Got My Name.” The artist was bounding across the stage, excited and excitable, and feeding off the love the crowd was sending back to him. He next went in to “Stuck on the Floor,” but partway into the song, his mic died. Some artists would be annoyed, or stop the song until a new mic was given to him. Not honestav – the crowd was too into it, and singing along to every word, so honestav kept the party going, becoming his own hype man while he couldn’t actually perform the song.
The artist was clearly not going to let anything dull his sunshine. He was loving being in California, and performing to a room of 1200 people. I think sometimes this excitement got the best of him a bit, as he spoke so quickly in between songs that I had trouble following what he was saying. But there was no denying he was having a good time, and that kind of enthusiasm is infectious. It makes everyone else want to have just as good of a time. And the audience obliged. There was a kid on his father’s shoulders most of the show, rocking devil horns and getting down to all of honestav’s songs.
And the songs that kept coming; “Know Better,” “Believe” and “Growing Pains” all rode spirited, yet often melancholic country-inflected rock melodies that gave honestav a road to deliver his tales of insecurity, dysfunctional youth and addiction. The artist has talent in crafting hooks that can be sung along to, even when his quick rap deliveries are a little harder to memorize and repeat back (at least for me). Like when he sings “Too weird for the cool kids. Too cool for the weirdos” on his next song “Cool Kids.” A chorus that also perfectly encapsulated that feeling of not knowing where you belong at a young stage in life.
The artist wore his Missouri roots on his sleeve, as did his friend/bassist/producer Wheezy. Their overalls sans-shirts outfits were perfectly country, and the back screen videos showing honestav riding dirt bikes and throwing backyard concerts spoke to the world he comes from. But country is certainly not the kind of music he makes. Not that there aren’t elements there; banjo and rootsy guitars are prevalent on Sweet American Boy. But songs like “Cobain,” much like his openers, owe far more to grunge and alternative rock than country music. Though in his lyrics on songs like “FKN Hate You,” one can hear the sentiment of someone who grew up in or near the Bible Belt. A song of conflicted feelings and desire to save someone from themselves, culminating in “So many nights, just me and God, I prayed through.”
And just as serious as he can be in a track like that, his love of blink-182 comes through on the bouncy, tongue-in-cheek “Erewon.” The track reveals a playful side to the artist; a relief from the deep-dives through his various external and internal struggles. Also, I’m putting money on this now: we’ll see an honestav/Travis Barker collaboration in the next two years. Mark my words.
While there remained a couple more technical issues during the show, for the most part it was an evening full of joyous performance and love. honestav paid lots of love to his bandmates, in between teasing them, and also paid tribute to members of his team who had been supporting him through his career.
One sort of strange moment in the show came with his MGK collaboration “Crash First.” With the video playing in the background, the artist told the audience to do MGK‘s parts, and performed the song along to its music video. It’s a great song, starting somber but evolving into a full-on party track. After he finished, an audience member behind me yelled at him to do it again. This same call came from one or two other members of the audience. And so…he performed it again! Though this time, he did MGK‘s parts, and asked the audience to perform his verses. And funnily enough, the audience seemed to be even more into the song on the second time around.
I’m not sure if this was a usual occurrence at his recent shows or not, but it was only the second time I had ever seen artist play the same song twice during a live set (Kennyhoopla did it during his Roxy show some years back). Following this double-up of his most recent single, honestav dove into his big one; “Overdose.” Backed by a moving collage of images of his father and time growing up, the viral hit addresses his father’s death from an overdose carried even more weight than simply listening to the song. The faces of his family and those he lost worked as a reminder of the humanity in those who become victims of addiction. It’s a viral hit with substance.
The show closed with the artist’s favorite song from his new album, the hopeful “Need Change Soon.” A poignant wake-up call, it’s understandable why the track would be so personal and meaningful to the artist. It represents the hope that likely has led him from being a potential victim of addiction in Missouri, to instead playing music to a room full of people in Los Angeles. And with joyful performances like this one, he will certainly continue to endear himself to fans, old and new, and justify the hope and resilience at the heart of so many of his songs.
You can find honestav‘s next tour dates here, and listen to his new album Sweet American Boy now.
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