I Watched a Sold-Out Show at the Showbox Fall in Love with K.Flay, and it was Magical

One of K.Flay’s magical moments from her January 19th Showbox show.

Photo courtesy: Brittany O’Brien

There was something magical happening at the Seattle K.Flay concert at on January 19th.

The moment I walked onto the jam-packed dancefloor of the Showbox, I could hear the sound of hundreds of voices, all laughing and humming and singing the words to songs they couldn’t wait to hear live, in just a few short hours. Even though I was there only 20 minutes after the doors first opened, the room was very much alive—under the maroon glow of the trademark domed Showbox ceiling, hundreds and hundreds of people stood as close to the stage as possible, laughing, humming, singing, and standing on tippy toes just to get a look of an unoccupied stage. As I pushed forward through the crowd, I noticed something different from any other show I’d been to in Seattle yet… Everyone around me seemed to be wearing some form of K.Flay merch—whether it was a hat, a sweatshirt, a t-shirt, or all three, people seemed to have come to the show prepared. I wasn’t sure if they had all seen her before, or if they were all just mega-fans. When I asked the people around me, the verdict was mixed. Some had seen her open for another band in another city and fallen in love with her then, and others had fallen in love with her sprawling discography on YouTube and Soundcloud and were simply euphoric to see her perform in person. One thing was clear among all the people I asked—they were counting down the moments until Kristine Meredith Flaherty, a 32-year-old LA-based singer/songwriter, would make her way up onstage.

The energy of the crowd seemed to heat up even more right around 9:00 PM, moments before the opener, Sir Sly, made their way onstage. Full disclosure: although I adore both K.Flay and Sir Sly, Sir Sly is (and has been) one of my favorite bands since my sophomore year of high school. The LA-based trio, consisting of vocalist Landon Jacobs and instrumentalists Jason Suwito and Hayden Coplen, has been on the scene since 2013, but really started to appear in the mainstream indie-pop culture in the past few years. I’ve been listening to them since late 2014 and was absolutely overjoyed to see them in person. I had high expectations, of course, but those expectations were completely blown away by what was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.

Seeing a live performance of songs that meant so much to me and had meant so much to me for such a long time, was special in a way I don’t know if I can ever fully articulate. For me, their music was discovered in a tumultuous time of self-doubt, fear, but ultimately a huge time of growth, and I associate their music with every single moment of that period. Although their newest album, Don’t You Worry, Honey, is superb for so many reasons, they have one song off their first ever set of releases, “Ghost,” that has gotten me through more than I could ever say.

Seeing them perform “Ghost”, and screaming the lyrics along with the band (who were standing ten feet away from me,) was impactful and profound and just so damn beautiful in a way I don’t think words can touch. What was even cooler, though, was that I wasn’t the only one screaming every word to the song, too immersed in the moment to worry about the embarrassing audio that was gonna show up on the next day’s video of the moments. Even through Sir Sly was just the opener, people were still euphoric to watch them and support them as a band. They took the joyous, anticipatory energy that was already budding before they even walked up onstage, and helped it bloom into such a shock of electric excitement that I had a head rush before the main act even appeared onstage.

And then, in a rush of neon colors and the shriek of an electric guitar, K.Flay appeared onstage.

If I thought the crowd was alive during the opening set, then I don’t even know what adjectives to use to describe them during K.Flay’s set. The energy of the crowd was so aggressive yet passionate that it almost felt oxymoronic, so beautiful and tender and raw and angry but most of all, just happy to be there—and I guess that describes K.Flay perfectly. Her stage persona was simply bada**, with an all-black wardrobe and a curtain of dark hair that fell across her face like a mask, but also so endearing and beautiful that you felt your heart skip a beat whenever she smiled. It was a beautiful thing to watch the entirety of the crowd, myself included, fall in love with her and her performance over the course of her hour-and-a-half show. It was hard not to.

She opened with “Make Me Fade,” one of the most popular songs off her 2014 album Life as Dog. The song was a brilliant way to create momentum with the audience, as that’s one of her most adored songs, and the energy she brought up with that song seemingly didn’t want to quit.

A few songs into her set, K.Flay stopped her performance to make a quick announcement into the mic. “I’d like to invite some friends up onto the stage,” she mused, “so give them a warm welcome!”

The crowd muttered excitedly, still in a dreamlike haze from the beginnings of the concert. It felt like a strange dream to be in the Showbox with such an enthusiastic crowd, a performer onstage, but nothing coming out of the speakers. For a few moments, nothing happened. K.Flay smirked out at the crowd, and we smiled dumbly up at her. Nobody had a clue what was happening, but we were all excited to see what was going to unfold next.

Two girls made their way up onstage, one of them smiling widely, cheeks flushed, the other one looking deeply confused but happy. K.Flay hugged both of them (to the surprise of the already-shocked girl,) and then gave the mic over to the one who had been smiling broadly. “Hi guys!” she said, and the introduced herself. She then introduced the girl standing next to her, who waved sheepishly at the crowd. She was just as confused as we were. The girl with the mic took a breath, looked at the girl standing to her left, and then gazed out at the crowd. “So, you guys,” she started, “this is my best friend, my other half, and my girlfriend.” She said something into the mic next, but you couldn’t hear it over the way the crowd exploded with cheers. We all realized what happened at the same moment her girlfriend did, who’s jaw dropped at the same moment we all exploded with joy.

By the time the girl with the mic dropped to one knee, I (and most of the crowd) were ugly crying our hearts out. It was a beautiful, special moment, and it was seriously one of the most incredible things I’ve ever witnessed. After the beautiful couple hugged, kissed, and cried their eyes out like the rest of us (she said yes!), K.Flay dedicated the next song to them. It was more of a sappy, ballad than her normal stuff; the profusely popular “It’s Strange,” an anthem that she created with Chicago-based duo Louis the Child (another one of my favorite artists!) about finding someone who you love so much that ‘it’s strange’ how you never need space from them and love every little thing they do. From there, the show felt even more like a dream, with a crowd that never wanted to wake up.

After the concert, my eyes were puffy from crying and my cheeks hurt from smiling. I stumbled out, in a dreamlike state, with the rest of the crowd—all 1,100 of them (K.Flay had sold out the show.) I made my way, trance-like, to the Sir Sly merch table, with the intention of getting a t-shirt to commemorate the night in mind. I had been staring at my feet, shuffling over crumpled Rainer cans and used tissues (seriously, everybody cried), the music from the night pounding in my head, and was met with even more of a surprise when I finally reached the merch table, looked up, and met eyes with the instrumentalists from Sir Sly. I laughed out loud. Of course. How could this night get better?

I shook both their hands, introduced myself (I met Jason Suwito and Hayden Coplen) and then told them how much their music meant to me. I told them about all the CD’s I had burned for myself, for my family, for people I had had crushes on over the years, all full of their music. I told them about a night a few months after I first discovered their stuff when I drove until the road turned to dust and stones and the sky faded into stars, with the same song of theirs (Ghost, of course) looping infinitely, and how I sat on the hood of my car and cried my eyes with their song in background out until I felt better (cliché, I know.) They both smiled listening to my stories, chuckling along at the mental image of 16-year-old me bumping their earliest Soundcloud playlist (and getting real emo in the process). “You have no idea how much it means to us to hear that,” Suwito said to me, smiling so hard his eyes twinkled. All I could do was return his gaze and meet his eyes with the same goofy, thrilled smile.

That night, I fell asleep in my brand-new concert shirt because I was too excited to let the night end. As I dozed off, colors danced behind my eyelids and music throbbed inside my mind. I smiled broadly into my pillow. There are some moments that are just so intricately special and perfect that it feels like nothing could have made them better.

Seeing K.Flay and Sir Sly at the Showbox was one of those nights for me.

AMELIA ZEVE | Sorry for my 100-second Snapchat story! | KXSU Arts Reporter