kmoe & quannnic @ globe hall

No hay banda! There is no band! Il n’est pas de orquestra!

This is all a tape recording.

No hay banda! And yet, we hear a band.

If we want to hear a clarinet, listen.

“One”

Un trombone à coulisse.

“Two”

Hear le son! It’s all recorded.

“Three”

Il n’est pas de orquestra. It is an illusion.

“Four”

Listen.

kmoe – Aired out

This is how the scene is set. It’s September 24 at Globe Hall, a bar/BBQ restaurant/concert venue tucked underneath the intersection of I-25 and I-70 in Denver’s overlooked Globeville neighborhood. The audience slowly trickles in, forming a small crowd in front of the empty stage. A man walks calmly onto the stage with a guitar and a laptop. He turns it on, offers a thumbs-up to the sound booth, and presses the spacebar, triggering the playback of a scene from David Lynch’s 2001 surrealist mystery film Mulholland Drive. A moth flickers between stage lights as they shift from a deep blue to cyan and orange. Ominous horn screeches transition seamlessly into a steady siren, and kmoe comes onstage.

He promptly launches into “Aired out”, with comforting guitar and sentimental lyrics that strongly contrast the eerie introduction. That sentimentality, in turn, is quickly contrasted by buzzing synths, dance-friendly grooves, and a dubstep-tinged outro. The extent to which this introduction was meant to make a statement on the artificiality of modern live music and the limited resources available to smaller opening artists, versus simply being cool and drawing the audience in, I’m not too sure, but it worked wonderfully both ways.

Armed with his guitarist and a sampler loaded with producer tags, Guitar Hero sound effects, and the iconic Lil Wayne-born Car_Crash_And_Siren sound effect ubiquitous in countless online underground music scenes, kmoe’s eclectic influences blend together masterfully. Throughout the set, he colors the pensive indie rock, noise pop, and shoegaze of tracks like “Dumpster fire”, “Thousand yard stare”, and “Don’t be like mouse” with moments of digicore, hyperpop, footwork, bubblegum bass, and EDM, all against a backdrop of warm electronic production and anxious, doubtful lyricism.

Despite the subject matter, kmoe’s performance subverts the typical playbook of a sentimental indie rock opener via the music’s abundant dance influences and his high-energy stage presence. Between tracks, audience banter involves his Bladee shirt, the difficulty of performing at altitude, and the fact that this was both his first time in Denver and first tour. Tracks like “Bloodbath (Dance)” and “Carpet” offered plenty of moments to go hard, and I was especially excited to hear closer “it gets lonely”, which has long been one of those “I have to see this song live sometime before I die” tracks to me. As with many other moments throughout the show, its refrain of “It’s lonely out here” strikes as a cry for help, calling attention to the isolating divide between performer and audience, but the crowd’s enthusiasm and the song’s electric hyperpop production – plus a live-show-exclusive Jersey club outro – made for an energy that seems to overcome that rift, a sense of unity and joy taking its place.

quannnic – Observer

After a short intermission, quannnic takes the stage, offering a sharp counterpoint to kmoe’s bright introduction. Both artists lyrically deal with similar issues of self-worth, but their musical approaches are radically different: while kmoe’s production gives the issues he writes about a response of “fuck it, let’s dance”, quannnic goes all in on the emotions. Their set is characterized by a thick haze of grungy shoegaze and alt-rock. For much of the set, quannnic stands still at the microphone, strumming their Hamer Standard guitar and shooting a tired, almost scornful gaze into the audience. The audience seems more interested in sitting in the angst of it than headbanging or moshing, and the lights shine bright, colorful, and slow. Standing here is like watching the apocalypse. In this crowd, there’s nothing you can do but watch the sky burn.

The dense explosiveness that quannnic and their band evoke in each song they play is truly impressive – and their skill with storytelling is certainly worth appreciating, too. Their album “Warbrained”, released this August, is a concept album about a military veteran suffering from PTSD, 2023’s “Stepdream” evokes an abusive childhood through painted cover art and cryptic lyrics, and 2022’s “kenopsia” took inspiration from online horror media including GMod ARGs and Five Nights at Freddy’s. Though the lyrics themselves can get lost in the impenetrable fog that is the live mix, the raw emotion cuts through all the same.

I was especially impressed with “Observer”, which comes in swinging with an absolutely menacing riff and simple yet piercing vocals, to say nothing of the visceral lyricism: “Swinging from the wire, higher, higher / Telling war stories to the two way mirror / Fucking up my knuckles just to prove something / Everybody does it just to prove something / Everybody wins just to lose something”. Other standout moments include a soaring guitar solo on “Aviator”, the intense catchiness of the chorus of “Floorface”, and the airy intro to breakout hit and closer “life imitates life”. After the inevitable chant for an encore, both artists came onstage together to perform their song “stick”, taking turns at the microphone as the other coolly bounced around the rest of the stage: a fantastic sendoff to a fantastic performance.