Imagine for a minute that tomorrow morning you wake up, and you are completely deaf in your right ear. Then add to your imaginary scenario that you are a professional musician. Ultimately, you find out that your deafness was caused by a viral infection, and there’s nothing that can be done to “fix” it. How are you going to continue in your career with this roadblock staring you in the face?
This isn’t an imaginary scenario. It is very real, and it happened to the artist known as K. Flay in August of 2022. But there she was, last night and the night before, playing before sold out crowds at Denver’s Marquis Theater. It’s an amazing and inspiring story, from an amazing and inspiring singer, songwriter, and performer.
(I attended the shows on both nights, but only officially covered the show on Wednesday. So, while this review is “technically” for last night’s show, the bulk of it applies to the Tuesday night show as well.)
K. Flay (who was born Kristine Meredith Flaherty), has bounced back from her rearing loss in a big way. Rather than let it defeat her, she has channeled the emotions she’s gone through into her music. The result is her most recent album release, which dropped last September, just a little over a year after she woke up on that fateful morning. The title of that album, MONO, is partly inspired by her hearing loss. The album itself includes numerous references to that experience, including the words to the opening track, “Are You Serious?” …
Woke up on a Saturday, deaf in my right ear. I was dizzy and disoriented, vertigo severe. All the doctors said the cause was just some mystery unknown. Then they charged me thirteen thousand and the fuckers sent me home I was told that there was no way to prevent what had occurred. But the randomness of everything, it almost made it worse. Now lately every crowded room feels like I'm drowning in the sound. Of incoherent conversations and my heartbeat as it pounds.
The twice-Grammy nominated K. Flay is in the middle of a 14-date Mono Live in Stereo tour, crossing North America with shows in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Seattle, and San Francisco.
If you follow my Denver Entertainment Hub posts at all, you know that my genre “expertise” tracks to blues, blues rock, and classic rock, in that order. K. Flay falls way outside those borders. She began her musical career on a lark, while attending college at Stanford University in 2003. Her start focused on hip hop, which is the genre she still finds herself primarily attached to. But over the coming two decades her sound would evolve and expand. Yes, there’s still a significant hip hop component, but it’s mixed in with elements of pop, punk, alternative rock, dance, electro, and the various blends of those differing styles. It’s a fascinating, intriguing, and engaging mix.
On both Tuesday and Wednesday nights she delivered that fascinating, intriguing, and engaging mix in the form of twenty-song sets, each clocking in at one hour and twenty minutes. To K. Flay’s credit, and to the benefit of the faithful who attended both shows, while thirteen songs were common to both nights, there were substantial differences in the songs played between them. The two sets opened with the same four songs and closed with the same two. But in between, half of the songs played differed from Tuesday to Wednesday.
Common to both nights was an extraordinary energy level. Man, does this woman put on a high-energy, no holds barred show! Watching her dancing back and forth and across the stage, and at one point dropping to her back and “bicycling,” for more than an hour was almost a cardio workout for me.
The show began with the house lights down as drummer Ulf Wahlgreen and guitarist Alex Foote took the stage. As a faux boxing style announcement introduced her as both the challenger and the champion, K. Flay took the stage from the rear, clad in a black, silk boxing robe and sporting boxing gloves and stage makeup to mimic bruising on her face. With bass and drums providing the pounding beat, K. Flay threw punches in every direction as she launched into “Are You Serious,” the opening cut from the MONO album.
As would be expected, the setlists drew heavily from MONO, with nine tracks from the Wednesday set coming from that album. But she drew from her entire catalog, including three songs that were released as standalone singles. See the photo gallery below for a full view of the setlist from the Wednesday night show.
Since these two shows were my first seeing K. Flay perform live, I spent extra time in advance reading reviews of previous shows. There were a lot of things prior reviewers agreed on – most notably the intensity and energy level of the shows themselves. I was prepared for that, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the respect, affection, and empathy K. Flay would demonstrate towards the people who had paid money to see her perform. Much of the evening’s between-songs dialog was focused on fighting inner demons (back to the intro where K. Flay was presented as both the challenger and the champion), identifying and overcoming life’s obstacles, and acceptance of your true self. At one point K. Flay noted that this wasn’t a meditation retreat, and it was time to get back to a rock and roll show. That being said, there’s no doubt that there’s a lot more going on with a K. Flay show than “just” outstanding music and high energy.
There’s no way I can review these shows and not give a HUGE shoutout to the crowds for both nights. Denver concert crowds are always impressive, but the crowds at the K. Flay shows set a new bar. Observing them in action, two things are clear. First, their adoration and reverence for K. Flay is off the charts. Second, they don’t show up to just see the show. They come to be a part of it. That’s something K. Flay uses to tremendous advantage. Every artist has points in their shows where they try to get the audience to sing along, if not completely take over vocal duties. K. Flay doesn’t have to try. Her audiences know every word to every song, and they shout them out whether K. Flay is asking for it or not. They jump, and sway, and dance in a near euphoric state of bliss. It’s an amazing thing to watch – almost as exciting as the music and show itself. Almost.
Story and photos by Rick Witt www.rickwittphotography.com
