The energy in the room is electric and buzzing, loud chatters among the crowd and the occasional syncopated chant can be heard. Suddenly, its lights off and screams erupt as the anticipatory crescendo noise at the beginning of their song “Dumbest Girl Alive” fills the room.
The hyper pop duo known as 100 Gecs enters the stage.
Laura Les and Dylan Brady are the two artists behind 100 Gecs which was formed in 2015. The origin of the band’s name? A question that’s answer has differed in multiple interviews, making the duo that much more intriguing.
Currently in the midst of a world tour, 100 Gecs performed Wednesday night at the Tabernacle, a show full of eccentric visuals, and a crowd full of headbanging and screaming fans. With vocal tune and voice manipulations, 100 Gecs uses these tools to create unique vocals, emphasizing aspects within music that some other artists work to make more discrete. Self-describing the genre of music they make to Complex’s Pigeons and Planes as “electronic pop punk, fun pop, kooky-pop and oh-so-wacky-pop,” this type of music is not to be put in an overly defined box.
As stated by Rolling Stone UK, “hyperpop artists make digital music pushed to its most flamboyant, most discordant, most spectacular extremes.”
The genre of hyper pop, a term that came to be around the early to mid 2000’s, is loosely defined as surrealist and maximalist. Aspects of which could be seen clearly and uniquely at the 100 Gecs concert. At multiple points throughout the show Les and Brady sang into a mic with a camera attached to it, allowing for it to capture the face of the member singing into the mic in real time, which was then projected, often accompanied by other filters, onto the large visual screen behind the stage.
Along with the mix of genres and descriptions intertwined into “hyper pop,” the band’s music is surely not a monolith.
Having previously opened for bands such as My Chemical Romance, Nine Inch Nails and Brockhampton, it is clear that 100 Gecs has the capability to appeal to multiple fan bases and those with a taste for various genres of music that may intersect.
With songs that start out almost like a sentimental ballad then unexpectedly beat switching, to songs that have intense guitar solos and shouting, 100 Gecs surely knows how to appeal to the ear of listeners in various ways.
Throughout the concert, fans in general admission could also be seen attempting to get through the crowd, likely in an effort to get closer to the stage. With the room packed, it is evident that the duo has a dedicated following.
Singing songs both newer and older, with the constant strobe lights, visual effects and members of the crowd seen rocking back and forth in unison, there was a clear aura that was shared among the crowd. People of all ages were seen at the concert, many dressed similarly, some adorned in colorful hair, fishnets and the duo’s merchandise.
