Went out to Portland to see yeule, one of my most anticipated shows. The concert was enjoyable, but felt slightly disappointed by the end.
Michele Yue
Michele offered some ethereal vocals alongside rather straightforward 00s house/electronic production. Her set was ~35min in length, though it seemed much longer. She was joined with a DJ/producer/vocalist that added in an energized drum pad performance and autotuned vocals. It seemed that he was aiming for a hyperpop edge during different parts of the set.
Overall, a decent opener. Probably will forget it by next month.
After a 25min intermission, this lit up in the background:
yeule
They took the stage alone with nothing other than a guitar + stand to the side, which allowed for them to dance gracefully and maximize the rather small size of Holocene's stage during songs. yeule had their back faced away from the audience with some subtle choreography to a 3 minute ambient opener not present on either of the two albums released thus far. After, they performed lovely "Pixel Affection" from
Serotonin II to kick off the set. Five more songs were performed that spread across both records, then they picked up the guitar, retuned, and performed both "Eva" and the lead single "Don't be so Hard on Your Own Beauty" from this year's
Glitch Princess. Closed out with "Bites on My Neck," and the crowd went bananas as expected...still one of my favorite singles of the year.
The set went for only 50min, a slightly disappointing length.
Continuous video of yeule's guitar portion of the set, with "Eva" and "Don't be so Hard on Your Own Beauty," a highlight from the concert that showcases yeule's beautiful approach to ambient pop, along with some lighthearted chatter:
Post-show
The crowd was very much desiring an encore but after three minutes of chanting, we were met with stage and room lights returning to normal luminescence. Took about another five minutes for the stage room to clear and free up the doors leading to the bar/lower area. Merch was absurdly priced (no media for sale, $27 for a signed small poster, $41 for t-shirts, $18 for a small four sticker pak, and a few others), so I skipped out on that. Waited around for yeule to appear from behind the curtains but they did not reappear. Gave up hope trying to get my
Serotonin II and
Glitch Princess records signed after 30min of waiting around, so I went home.