Melanie Martinez Delivers on her Trilogy Tour

Reviewed and shot by: Izzy Nuzzo

Friday, May 24, 2024 at Moody Center

Melanie Martinez performed her Trilogy Tour show at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas to a sold-out crowd, and it was everything I could have ever wanted! After being a fan for 9 years, it was extremely fulfilling to finally hear all three albums live.

The whole show felt like a Broadway masterpiece. It was an intricate and beautifully told story in the order of her albums, beginning with Melanie as “Crybaby,” growing up in “K-12,” and being reborn into the creature we see in “Portals.”

Melanie’s die-hard fans showed up in their best outfits wearing everything from pacifiers and bibs to fairy wings with full body makeup and prosthetic elf ears. They were trading bracelets and dancing throughout the entire show. You could really feel the emotional connection between Melanie and her fans. At the beginning of every song, the fans screamed louder and louder with excitement. It was definitely one of the loudest crowds I’ve ever heard in my life.

The choreography, props, and visuals for each song mimicked the actual music videos for those songs. Melanie and her dancers were very theatrical with their expressions and costumes. Melanie had three outfit changes representing each stage of life in her three albums.

The show was high production with multiple stage levels, inflatables, pyro, lasers, and even pink butterfly-shaped confetti in the finale. Melanie continued to impress the audience by utilizing the entire stage with different intentions in each song.

Melanie is the definition of a true artist. She is a musical genius and her execution of creative direction in her live shows is unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to see what comes next!

Festival Review: ACL 2023

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is always one to look forward to every single year in the fall. This year turned out to be another spectacular show to be put together by ACL. There was a bit of every genre across the lineup for every music fan to enjoy.

This year brought back artists that we haven’t seen in awhile and some that we saw just a few years ago but now performing on bigger stages. Of course we had to see our guy Kendrick Lamar. After great success from his latest album Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers he brought his show to Austin and a packed out crowd came to see Kendrick headline night one of the festival. On the other stage headlining night one was The Lumineers who always put on a great show.

Night two was headlined by rock legends The Foo Fighters. No matter where they play they always bring the best out of us and Austin loves this band and we know Dave Grohl loves Austin. The 1975 also headlined and brought tears to our eyes. Of course they were happy tears but also sad tears as fans knew the band would be taking a hiatus on touring for quite some time, so that may have been the last time we ever see them.

Night three was headlined by EDM duo Odesza, as well as the Austin favorites, Mumford and Sons. A lot of complaints and joy filled the air when we saw that Mumford and Sons would be coming back to ACL. Although they have performed at ACL quite a few times either as a full band or solo, their last appearance was in 2019 so about 4 years in between for the full band being here. Although people complained about that, we saw they attracted a huge crowd which many didn’t expect because of how much they’ve been here before. We loved their performance everytime we see them and we’re glad to see them together and performing their hit songs we all love and enjoy.

Although we love the headliners we showed a lot of love to the supporting acts which had quite a bit of our favs and we discovered some new favorite artists as well. Acts that we saw that we loved included Niall Horan, Kali Uchis, Maggie Rogers, Thirty Seconds To Mars, Lil Yachty, Tove Lo, Declan McKenna, Suki Waterhouse, Glorilla, D4VD, and Labrinth amongst others.

We know ACL always brings the heat regardless of what people have to say. We love how this festival brings in artists who we may not know and right after ACL they blow up and we remember seeing them before playing to small crowds. It always takes us back to seeing Lizzo being the first act on the Honda stage in 2016 and 3 years later she had one of the biggest crowds we’ve ever seen at ACL.


Festival Review: SXSW 2023 Porsche X Fader

One of the best music showcases we saw the first weekend of SXSW included the Porsche X Fader showcase/brand activation. Just like last year Porsche hosted a few music series concerts at their pop up activation, but this time they brought Fader along with them to introduce a new wave of music artists. They brought out new artists such as Madison McFerrin and MorMor who left the crowd amazed at how great of a musician and singer these two are. Night two was a huge hit with Sudan Archives opening the night and put on a spectacular show.

The headliner was the legendary hip hop rapper, Big Boi who had the crowd singing and dancing all night long to hit songs from Outkast. Night three concluded with the very chill music and singing from Kelela and what a treat for her to finish off the music showcases for Porsche X Fader.