My concert-going adventures are like the most intense rollercoaster you have ever been on. Tuesday night was spent bracing for impact from bodies falling into the photo pit during the Kublai Khan set. Wednesday night was spent wholly lost and in a slight trance during a lovely performance from Real Estate. The thing that these two shows had in common was the passion that radiated from the stage, and although I felt a bit more at home on Tuesday night with the intensity that came with that show, the beauty of Wednesday night’s show absolutely struck me in a powerful way.
Before I talk about the headlining act, Real Estate, let’s chat about the opening act, Marina Allen. Wednesday night’s show at The Fine Line in downtown Minneapolis was Marina’s first time in Minneapolis, which had me as baffled as she was when trying to figure out what “heated parking ramp” means (and, yes, as she put it, it’s partially so our cars don’t freeze in the winter). I only say that because Marina and her band came off as so well-rehearsed and professional. I don’t know how long Marina has been performing but she felt so comfortable on stage but also had a very raw quality about her music that made for a very cool and intriguing contrast throughout the set.
There was something ridiculously dainty about Marina. I know that that could come off as a bad thing but I definitely don’t mean for it to be like that. There was just something so sweet, soft, and delicate about everything Marina did, whether it was singing or strumming her guitar. The band members she had beside her perfectly mirrored this tenderness. There was no moment when I felt the music didn’t fit the vibe. Everything was quiet and calm, yet it came with an undeniable sense of strength. Whether you picked up on that strength with the delivery of some of the words throughout her quick opening set or you picked up on the power of her beautiful songwriting, Marina Allen kicked off the night in such a lovely way and definitely dug out a spot in my heart with her honestly raw yet perfect performance.
Real Estate’s performance wasn’t super intense or anything like that. Part of me hated this because I was put into such an intense mood with the brutality of Tuesday night’s show still stuck in my head, but at the same time, I loved the almost meditative state that Real Estate seemed to get me in. That all makes it sound like the set was boring, and that’s not what I’m trying to convey here. It was boring, but only when it came to the performance. I mean, this band doing high jumps and yelling at the audience to get a pit going would have been the most bizarre thing I have ever seen in my life. Beyond the performance, I found myself completely lost in Real Estate’s world sonically. As mentioned, their sound is most easily described as indie-pop. There were times throughout their set that I was getting very Death Cab For Cutie vibes, and others that seemed to have a more infectious quality to them, leaning into the more danceable indie-pop scene of today.
I wasn’t able to sing along to their set, which lasted around twenty songs, but I was alone in that camp. I may have blindly walked into this show purely due to the fact that the show was pitched to me and I had nothing else going on, but it was clear that the rest of the audience had been waiting a long time for this performance. Knowing very little about this band means I don’t know much about their history with Minneapolis, but the band did mention that it had been a while since they had visited the Great North. This comment was met with the most polite but also loudest roar of applause that the audience could have possibly made. This, along with the way everyone was singing along to every word but in a respectable way so as not to overpower the band, told me what I needed to know about Real Estate. I may have been living under a rock, having never heard of this band before, but there were many people in attendance on Wednesday night where this show was everything to them. They had been waiting for a long time for this and were not going to let anything stop them from licking up every single moment that this band was going to give them.
Wednesday night was a super chill night. It may not have been the most exciting show of the week for me, but it was definitely one of the most heartfelt and beautiful.
