Rainbow Kitten Surprise took Everwise Amphitheater by storm Monday night and welcomed Indianapolis as the first show of their newest tour, The Love Hate Music Box Tour.
Returning to a full tour after a long hiatus during the pandemic, a new album and a handful of small coastal tours since the pandemic, Rainbow Kitten Surprise (RKS) was back and better than ever.
The show started with the opener Medium Build, who is someone I cannot wait to listen to more and have found having on repeat the week following the show. Performing his alternative indie hits like “Crying Over U,” and my personal favorite “Cuz of U,” started the show with music that maybe didn’t offer anything flashy in performance, but personal and vulnerable lyrics.
Most special to me, who watched a lot of this set from the photo pit and front of house was the way fans of RKS knew most, if not all, of the songs performed by Medium Build. The concert is always so much more fun when the opener is welcomed and enjoyed, not ignored or treated as a bathroom break or food run. So, for me, it was a great experience to see the opener appreciated by fans of RKS.
RKS then opened their show with the alt-rock song “Devil Like Me,” from their 2013 album Seven + Mary. This was followed up by their popular song “Cocaine Jesus” from the same album and “Holy War” from their album How To: Friend, Love, Freefall.
“Cocaine Jesus” had a short stint on alternative TikTok during COVID-19, which is how I personally came across RKS. Transparently, I have been a fan of RKS for about five years now, and so much of my reason to love RKS was on display at their concert. They are unapologetically themselves and it shows in their lyrics, music and performance.
The lead singer of RKS, Ela, came out as transgender to fans in 2022. And while the band had been releasing music before that, looking at the lyrics retrospectively, so much of their music resonates with me about the experience of being an outsider of something. Their music so proudly speaks to the weird kids, the odd ones out, and the ones who never quite fit in.
And music with a message like that is what can connect a fanbase and create a connection between artist and fan that is not always achievable by all musicians.
I was able to spend the first three songs of the night in the photo pit, which was incredible as a fan and someone who really admires Ela. Seeing her perform and simply exist before me was an experience that I am still feeling the lingering emotions of days later.
However, what was the most special experience that night, came to me upon exiting the photo pit and getting to stay in the venue to watch the remainder of the show.
I am always a fan of having phones out now and then at concerts. I think it is a modern and accessible way to collect memories, and I will rarely judge someone for recording the majority of a show on their phone as long as it is not making it hard for those around them to enjoy. But at this show, there wasn’t a phone in sight in the pit. And no, phones were not collected at the door.
All that I could see in the pit, and in the rest of the venue for that matter, were people genuinely happy to be at a show. They were singing, dancing, and interacting with each other. They traded candy bracelets, offered to take photos of strangers, danced with each other in small circles and cried together.
These were fans connected by the music, the message of the music, and the shared space we were all in. They were people who all resonated with the message RKS shared in their music. This was a safe space for them.
In an era where shows and concerts are now commodified into status symbols that are shared on social media rather than enjoyed at the moment, it was so refreshing to see people simply happy to be there because it meant something to them.
RKS continued their show with songs across their over a decade-long music career, including songs like “First Class,” “Good Night Chicago,” and “Wasted.” They had the live debuts of songs “Finalist” and “Lucky” and performed one of their newer singles from their latest album, “Superstar.”
The show concluded with their encore songs of “When it Lands,” and fan favorite: “Freefall.”
“Freefall” gained traction on TikTok around the pandemic, helping revitalize the fanbase RKS had before their hiatus and bring along some new fans. The audio currently has over 131,000 videos under it and contains dozens of covers and alternative sounds of the song with thousands of their videos.
As one of the fans who came around during the pandemic, “Freefall” is a personal favorite song of mine across all the music I listen to and is one I listen to a lot.
A line in the song, “You can let it all go,” is repeated over and over as the song tells the story of someone who gives all they have to others, only to never receive it back, and when left fully alone, they even try to connect with the Devil but even the Devil isn’t interested. It leaves the listener with the lingering message that it is okay to hit rock bottom, what matters more is how you pick yourself back up.
There is something so special about this being the song that, in a way, revitalized this fanbase and brought a new life into this long-time band. I imagine that taking a hiatus from making music for self-discovery and mental healing would be rock bottom, and letting that go and coming back almost a new person to perform again is really taking in the important message of knowing you can fall but you have to come back from it.
It truly is a freefall.
Written by: Liv Ground
Photos by: Liv Ground
