Queer Joy in PDX - A Celebration with Dodie

3.13.26 - Portland, OR

Like many GA venues, the Crystal Ballroom can slowly, but surely, feel like a tin of packed sardines. This feeling is reserved for even the smallest of artists who visit the historical Portland music hall, but with an indie hit like dodie, the squishing begins early. Smushed together even before her opener, Andy Louis takes the stage, concert goers nevertheless remain excited. Anyone not stuck in the “tin of people” is in line for either merch or alcohol. 

Andy Louis is not a surprising opener, at least sonically, for dodie. He comes out to an adoring Portland crowd in a kitschy goose covered sweater, leading to an audience member to scream “I like your sweater!” which receives a “Me too!” in response. Barely even two minutes, not a song played, and yet he already has the audience hooked. Louis’ audience engagement is not why he’s a great choice to be dodie’s opener, though it certainly helps. His sonic palette across his set mimics both older dodie tunes as well as new ones, off her most recent and touring album Not For Lack of Trying. While playing live on solo acoustic and electric guitar, this stripped back palette seems in line with many solo tracks that dodie has created, especially considering their shared jazz influence. However, if you listen to the studio version of Louis’ set, you’ll definitely find him more in line with RnB crooners like Daniel Caesar, who he actually shouted out during his performance.

Andy Louis opens for dodie at McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Megan Lorich.

“I’m French,” Louis says as he introduces his first track, “Corrosif.” Which is, well, French for “corrosive.” Louis’ heritage remains a throughline throughout his songs. The song following “Corrosif,” “I Don’t Need to Know,” features a French verse that dances lightly over a playful bossa nova guitar. The reasoning behind his goose sweater, a track titled “Geese Stay Together Forever,” features a French line translating to “Don’t wait too long before it’s too late,” which he comedically translated to the audience several times in a role to really drill the message into the audience’s heads. Whistling pops up again and again, like on the tongue twister “Eilish Stylish” and closer “Lily.” Each track Louis performs feels like a walk down a cobblestone avenue. Birds are chirping, you have a coffee in your hand, and the sun is shining without leaving you with heat stroke. His comedic timing is off the charts, expertly bouncing off audience quips. After hyping up dodie, he informs the audience where he’ll be after the show if they’d like to chat. Louis is a great performer who was a perfect choice to warm up dodie’s crowd. 

On the Crystal Ballroom’s floor, being packed like a tin of sardines isn’t necessarily ideal. This is largely due to the ballroom’s floor itself, which is notoriously bouncy. If a large group of audience members coordinate their bounces at the same time, a trampoline effect ensues. This is a surprise tool that will help us later…

Members of dodie’s backing band slowly make their way to the stage, bathed in mysterious and moody lighting. An instrumental begins from the band, featuring a drummer, two guitarists, a cellist, and more. Audience members begin to recognize this instrumental as the backing of “Arms Unfolding,” before dodie finally makes her debut. But rather than beginning this track, dodie shouts: “Who feels like a hot mess tonight?” The instrumental shifts, the crowd goes wild, and the band begins to play “Hot Mess.” Prior to dodie on stage, the room felt electric, almost as if the crowd couldn’t get more hyped than they already were. dodie’s stage presence easily fixes this, taking them from a ten to an eleven over the course of “Hot Mess,” leaving several concert goers next to me already out of breath after just one song.

“Welcome to the ‘Not For Lack of Trying Tour!’” dodie gleefully calls out to the audience. “This next song is about a man called Dave. Is there anyone around here named Dave?” A few audience members are pointed to by friends and partners. “You wanna be Dave tonight? Cool, fold your arms and act a little sexist.” The song dodie performs isn’t merely about Dave, it’s named after the sexist asshole himself. It’s fitting that Andy Louis is part of dodie’s backing band for this tour, especially for this song. The same bossa nova beat that’s present on his song “I Don’t Need to Know” aligns with the same energy as “I Feel Bad For You, Dave.” Everyone knows that making fun of misogynistic pigs is fun, but it turns out singing about how awful they are with a crowd of other people is even better. 

dodie easily breezes into her next song, “The Answer.” Without hesitation or prompting, the audience returns callback to a few opening lines from the track: “You better watch your step,” “Oops,” replies the audience. “Do you wanna know what’s next?” asks dodie. “Yes!” the audience emphatically replies. During the track’s instrumental break, Louis duels against his fellow touring guitarist, once again, synergizing the bouncy energy between his tracks and dodie’s. Bouncy is probably the perfect adjective for “The Answer,” as dodie jumps around the stage so much that by the end she, like the audience, is out of breath. “Gosh, I really jump around for that song…” she laughs. “Do you like my outfit? You think I look cool?” the audience can only answer with screams. “Like a… cool girl, maybe?” More screaming. “This is a song about squashing your needs for a boy, which I will never do again!” This final declaration receives the loudest cheer of them all, as dodie begins to sing “Cool Girl.

dodie performms “Smart Girl” in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Megan Lorich.

It’s at this point in the set that dodie stops transitioning between tracks for a bit and a pattern begins to emerge in the concert’s lighting. Almost every single song throughout the concert ends with a hard black, a reset for some very intriguing lighting that shifts between each song. The lighting cues throughout this show have been carefully thought out, particularly during “Smart Girl.” dodie wails the title of the song as it fades out and ends, white lights strobing like a thunderstorm as the instrumentation roars behind her over and over. A similar lighting cue is featured during her performance of “I’M FINE!” with the expression highlighted by the same blocks of white light. And it truly is a block. Rather than ethereal wispy lighting, the bright white the lighting cue uses acts as almost a sheet of paper, the sort of bright whiteness associated with heaven and opening your phone at full brightness when you have a hangover at 3 A.M. It’s an incredible way to highlight these angsty aspects of dodie’s songwriting and the overwhelming production on both of these tracks. Both of these tracks are featured on dodie’s latest album, Not For Lack of Trying, which we reviewed last October. 

dodie used these overwhelming songs as bread for a sandwich, with her song “Hate Myself” acting as the filling. While “Hate Myself” does not receive the same retina shredding blasts of white light as the other two songs, dodie’s lighting designer balances the quieter moments of the track with its louder ones, switching between colors as the volume of the piece goes back and forth. “You go quiet, I hate myself,” dodie announces and the audience refrains it right back.

After moving to the piano towards the end of “I’M FINE!” dodie introduces her next song, “Tall Kids.” A series of moving projections swirl around behind dodie throughout the track, with an isolated spotlight landing on her and the piano during the final chorus. It blocks out the rest of the band, leaving the feeling that it’s just her and the instrument on the stage. A bright orange returns as the drums kick in, with a fade out rather than a black out this time. A very distinct lighting choice compared to the rest of the show that suits the track. 

“Thank you Portland! Portland, Oregon…” dodie lilts. “I can literally see all of you.” She rouses the crowd into a rendition of “Happy Birthday” after noticing an audience member wearing birthday memorabilia of some kind. Various names are thrown out for the birthday person, as multiple audience members must’ve decided to include dodie as part of their very special day.

“I’m not very good at writing for a theme,” dodie begins again, once the festivities have died down. “But I tried to write a concept album. Then I looked at all of these songs and I went, ‘What am I trying to say?’ And I saw a lot of hard work and struggle. What’s another way to say that? ‘Not for lack of trying.’ That says so many different things.” And with that anecdote, dodie performs her latest album’s titular track “Not For Lack of Trying.” Yes, the white lighting makes its return. But as the track’s instrumentation becomes fuller, a teal and a blue begin to slip in and mix. This blue continues into dodie’s rendition of “Now,” a track she “wrote when I tried to manifest being happy,” she explains to the audience. The light is completely focused on her, similar to the spotlight in “Tall Kids,” with the blue acting as an overwhelming force this time. The Crystal Ballroom audience, which has been rowdy and cheerful up until this point, is deadly quiet. You could hear a pin drop. 

dodie performs “She” in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Megan Lorich.

But the next two songs in dodie’s set really bring the emotions home. A series of one word songs, “Now” is followed up by “When” and “She.” The latter are two of the earliest songs in dodie’s discography in this set. In dodie’s words, “It [meaning ‘when’] could be seen as a question. I wrote this song a long time ago, and it’s clear I was always quite existential and this song proves it. But I really like singing it because I spend time with my younger self, who clearly wasn’t doing great. But I’m doing much better.” dodie performs the song at the piano and I cry, and cry, and cry. I am fourteen again, not the sixteen dodie mentions in the lyrics of the track. Not the twenty-two I am standing pressed together like a sardine in this ballroom.“Gotta get it through my head, I’ll never be sixteen again. I’m waiting to live, and waiting to love. Oh, it’ll be over, and I’ll still be asking when.” She sings and sings, even though the chorus remains the same, each line feels like it’s floating out of her lips and into the air without a second thought. Free writing like the diary entries she fakes in the lyrics of the track. “Sick of faking diary entries,” dodie scoffs once the song concludes. “Why do I do that? Do you do that? Maybe it’s because we can’t even be honest to ourselves…” dodie and the audience let out a shocked woah at the same time before laughing together.

“Ooo… this is my favorite bit,” dodie continues through the laugh. “Wait, Portland is very queer, right?” Thunderous applause and cheering. “Sometimes I introduce this song just by going gay, gay, gay, gay,” the word is repeated by the hundreds of people in the room. “This is one of my earliest and gayest songs. And I would like to dedicate it to all the women in the world.” There is more cheering before dodie begins one of her most heartbreaking songs, “She.” Unlike most queer media, the song is not heartbreaking because the subject of the song outright turns down dodie or dies tragically. It’s beautiful in its open-endedness, that its subject is so beloved by dodie yet the feelings are seemingly unreturned. I picture myself as a sophomore in high school, think of all the girls that smelt of “lemongrass and sleep.” That I imagined tasted like “apple juice and peach.” And my chest heaves as I sing the bridge, that “she tastes like birthday cake and story time and fall. But to her, I taste of nothing at all.” 

It’s magical, and also slightly horrifying, how easily music can transport us. How I can remember crying to this song while sneaking out in my tiny Prius at midnight. Or listening to it before bed through crappy MacBook speakers and imagining auburn hair in a history class. The terrifying feeling of coming out to my father. The terrifying knowing that I have yet to come out to my mother. And throughout the entire performance, a giant rainbow was rigged up behind dodie. Soft and poignant under the symbol. Most of the audience in the Crystal Ballroom that night was queer. It was a real who’s who of non-binary baristas, cottage core trans mascs, and mean, but softened, lesbians. And, of course, fellow hypersexual bisexuals. It meant a lot to hear that song live, to a small part of myself that I had boxed up in cardboard and shoved to the very back of my brain, where high school nostalgia goes. dodie mentions later in her set that she can see everyone in the audience. I like to think she can see how much this song means to so many every time she gets to perform it.

dodie grabs her ukulele before issuing an apology, “We’re switching to boys, sorry.” Instant boos from the audience. “I know… I know… This is a song I wrote to impress a boy.” Yet another one word track, “Human,” was originally written and performed with Jon Cozart (whom you may know as PAINT). It’s a beautiful track that is well loved by many, though it’s clearly something dodie has moved past. In comparison, “Guiltless” allows the audience to rage. “So themes… Parental trauma…” the audience is thrumming. “Wanna hear a song about it?” Despite still being on ukulele, fuller production is weaved into the track. It’s clear we’re building towards the end of dodie’s set, though the audience uses it as catharsis. Once again, without any request or indication from dodie, the audience repeats the track’s refrain under dodie’s vocals as she finishes out the track. “I’m not bitter, I’m just tired. Always getting angry at the way that you’re wired.” Again and again, the audience repeats without wavering for a second. Some crowds will stop clapping or singing along to a track eventually, but the Crystal Ballroom did not cease their chanting until “Guiltless” was finished. 

“You know, when I’m looking at you,” I feel bad when you don’t know any words,” dodie admits to laughter. “Know that I look at you and go ‘Don’t worry! I don’t mind.’ I hope that gives you some peace of mind.” It’s for this reason that dodie likely demonstrates the “la la la’s” in her next song, “Lonely Bones.” The demonstration clearly wasn’t necessary, as once again, the entire audience not only does the “la la la’s” perfectly, but sways alongside dodie and claps without being motioned. Rather than doing another introduction, the lights shift to teal to signal the beginning of “Monster.” More synchronised clapping. More synchronised singing along, including a group shout of the lyric “Are you still in there?” without prompting. A spotlight on the drummer during his solo. The audience sinks to the floor as dodie sings “We won’t eat out words, they don’t taste so good,” before rising again, like an indie pop rendition of Flo Rida’s “Low.”

“I can’t believe this,” dodie says. “But this could be my final song…” With a flourish of her ukulele, dodie announces “This is a song about a fuck boy.” “Boys Like You” is an excellent way to end a show. Another enemy for the audience to get mad at. Another way to siphon energy. And another way to get them pumped for the show’s inevitable encore.

Remember that surprise tool I mentioned earlier? The concert goers instantly began to stomp their feet the second dodie’s pigtails disappeared off the stage. Coordinated stomping, akin to “We Will Rock You.” Jumping so much the floor feels as though it’ll cave in. “Thunder and lightning!” are the first words dodie says as she appears back on stage, only about a minute after the stomping began. “I only came on because I thought the fucking floor was going to cave in.” Her words only usher in more stomping from the crowd. About two weeks prior to dodie’s concert date, Zara Larsson performed at the Crystal Ballroom. It seems that she forgot to pack something up while touring stateside… because an inflatable flamingo is brought from backstage and crowd surfs through the audience for the rest of the encore. But before dodie performs her encore, she gives a heartfelt message to the audience. 

“I do just want to acknowledge the state of your country,” dodie begins as everyone boos. “It would not feel right to come here and not say anything. I just wanted to stand on your ground and openly say ‘Fuck Trump!’. Fuck the guy! Fuck the guy! And FUCK ICE! Fuck their racist fucking bullshit. Yes, it’s easy to feel nihilistic and overwhelmed. United. Love it. I don’t have anything else to say,” dodie cuts herself off with a laugh. “Well I actually have so much else to say, but we don’t have time to continue. Always thinking of you across the pond. But hey, love wins. And. I love queer people.”

It is with that declaration of support that dodie sings a song about a threesome. At her merch table, dodie held a poll to decide which song she would sing during her encore and “In the Middle” was selected by the audience. “I usually play this with a band, but… can you help me?” dodie asks the audience as she is rendered to play the track with solo ukulele. The stomps return, acting as the rhythm section of the song as audience members playfully sing about dodie’s proposition of a sexcapade. The whole band comes back out for the final song in dodie’s encore – “ending with, of course, the most important song. About my cat!” dodie exclaims. “This song goes out to all the cats in the world.” The audience plays along with every request dodie makes during her rendition of “Darling, Angel, Baby,” showing her pictures of their cats and meowing along.

But all good things must come to an end. dodie and her band bow as “Rush” by fellow non-American English speaking YouTuber turned musician Troye Sivan ushers them back off stage. The inflatable flamingo continues to crowd surf. It is literally, so good, so good. It’s the epitome of queer joy in one of the queerest cities in America. It is a reminder of how much hope and joy we can have, in one of the darkest times in the country. Sometimes it takes someone from across the pond, and some really good lighting designers, to bring about some rainbow light in the dark. Thank you dodie.