MANILA, Philippines – If you attended Cigarettes After Sex’s concert at the Mall of Asia Arena last January 14, the first thing you would notice is that everyone around you was wearing black.
It wasn’t a dress code the show’s organizers, KARPOS, set, but most concert-goers seemed to just know to do it anyway. After all, if you’re a fan of the American band, you’d be well aware of their commitment to their black-and-white theme, with all their cover art, stage outfits, and even their social media posts following that same color scheme.
Even the looping visuals being flashed on the LED screens before the show were in black and white, so the tone for the whole concert had really been set early on.
The show began right on the dot at 8 pm, and until the very end, there was a comforting calmness that radiated throughout the whole venue — even when loud cheers would erupt at the start of every song.
The first track Cigarettes After Sex members Greg Gonzalez, Jacob Tomsky, and Randall Miller played for the Filipino crowd was “X’s,” a fitting start to the Manila stop of the “X’s World Tour.” The first leg of the night mostly consisted of the band’s newer songs, with “X’s” being followed by “You’re All I Want,” “Dark Vacay,” and “Pistol.”
All over streaming platforms like Spotify, there were several playlists replicating the tour setlist, in the exact order the band played at previous stops. If you’re someone like me who likes to memorize these playlists to know exactly when my favorite songs would come on, you would already have a preconceived idea in your head of what the band would play, and when they would do so.
Perhaps among the most memorable moments of the night, then, was when the band went off script to perform songs that, presumably, most people weren’t expecting to hear live right then and there. One of these was the 2018 track “Sesame Syrup.” When vocalist Greg Gonzalez announced (like it was no big deal) that it would be the next song — a clear crowd favorite — fans already began to cheer in excitement even before he finished speaking, momentarily breaking the stillness that hung in the air.
It absolutely isn’t a Cigarettes After Sex concert without classics from their 2017 self-titled album. It was in these songs — like “Sweet,” “Sunsetz,” and “Apocalypse,” among others — where the crowd was wholeheartedly unapologetic about singing along and being unable to stifle their excitement as soon as they recognized the first few beats of the tracks.
And in “K.,” we even got to witness a breathtaking sea of lights filling the entire arena.
Of the most noteworthy things that night was how Gonzalez kept it short and simple when addressing the crowd between songs. He’d utter a quick “thank you” when they reach the end of a song, and onto the next part of the setlist the whole band goes. He had kept the same level of coolness in the way he’d walk up and down the center of the stage with his guitar in tow, and even when he would bend down to shake hands with fans at the barricade.
It’s the very calm that listeners look for in Cigarettes After Sex’s music — with Gonzalez’s soft, laidback vocals and Tomsky and Miller’s dreamy instrumentals — so it was satisfying to see that the same kind of energy persisted when the band was on stage, in the flesh.
The concert as a whole was proof that drawing a crowd doesn’t have to be about letting loose or showcasing outward liveliness. Of course, high-energy shows will always be fun, but Cigarettes After Sex has their own mellow way of captivating fans, and it’s obvious that this really works well for them. – Rappler.com