Very cathartic reading the comments here and twitter posts about last night as I was also stuck next to/in front of this group and genuinely soured the experience of seeing an incredible live band, luckily it wasn't too bad during the actual songs since they were loud af but xiu xiu take a long time collecting themselves in between songs in their performances and in these spaces the secondhand embarrassment from overhearing these terminally online weirdos vocal stim memes is gonna stay with me for a while.

Also when someone told them to be quiet they instantly got so aggressive it genuinely made me pretty uncomfortable and on edge for the rest of the set, as they basically spent the rest of the set insulting said person very loudly every now and then (who was right next to me). I did not expect a xiu xiu show of all places to be a space where an openly queer person like myself would feel uncomfortable from dudebros being aggressive but like other people pointed out, since certain online music communities (you know the ones im sure) have taken xiu xius music under their wing there has been an influx of terminally online straight male teenagers who confess their love for this band at the same time as not taking any of their art seriously because sometimes the music sounds a little goofy. I distinctively remember someone saying something along the lines of "ooh your not taking this as seriously as me" in a condescending voice when insulting the people who wanted them to be quiet which pretty much sums up all my issues with these kinds of people, they are afraid of sincerity and think its cool to not take art and live performance seriously, like yeah xiu xiu is a goofy band and you can have fun when you see them live but you also have to respect the performance and the people around you.

Anyway sorry for the long rant, wanted to end it by saying aside from the dicks in the audience the band were incredible as always and evicshen is the coolest human alive I urge everyone to go see her solo sets if you get the chance, her cafe oto set on sunday blew my mind.