Angel Olsen at Regency Ballroom: Return/Rebirth in Earnest

Angel Olsen walks out in white tulle, glorious bouffant, and unselfconscious grin. She is merry and (titularly) angelic. The set begins and drool appears on my chin. The rest of the audience is similarly enraptured––there are periodic outbursts of “YOU ARE SO PRETTY” and some heartfelt confessions of love.
This event, on October 20th, 2023 at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco’s lower Nob Hill, is a part of Olsen’s Big Time tour. Despite this, the setlist is not skewed toward any album in particular, and Olsen repeatedly turns to the audience for requests. This makes for a delightfully eclectic, occasionally jarringly varied collection of songs––a testament to Olsen’s versatility and her evolution as a writer. Some tracks feature a small orchestral unit and band, while others rely solely on Olsen’s voice and restrained guitar. During these, Olsen is backlit by a warm yellow-white light. It is magical. Everything else goes away. Etc.
When Olsen asks what day it is, there is a cacophonous, emphatic “FRIDAY”, unmistakably spoken through smiling mouths. It rumbles and ripples through the room like an amen said in a nondenominational church. Friday! This Friday-ness and Olsen’s wailing “I have to save my life” (see “Unfucktheworld” from Burn Your Fire for No Witness) feels like a release from the confines of the workplace and/or worldly plane. I think of the four hours I just spent at work, and how I still stink of ethanol. (I will later discover that a Kimtechnitrile glove was sticking out of my back pocket for the entirety of the concert.) The desire for escape and relief is a recurring theme in Olsen’s recent work, particularly her newest album, Big Time (2022). Before performing its pensive “Go Home”, Olsen shares that she wrote it during the pandemic, at a time when she felt helpless. In an interview with Uncut magazine, she said this textured, strenuous track also describes the isolation of being on the job. For Olsen, touring, wherein one is constantly at work, is feeling unknown: “The fans see your art when they look at you.” Though I know I cannot see Olsen the way that matters most, I can’t help but feel that she sees me. Her sacrifice is my solace; I am indebted.
“Go Home”, like most of the songs on Big Time, is never reticent or coy. It is efficient. There is very little translation or rhetorical analysis required. I wanna go home / Go back to small things / I don’t belong here / Nobody knows me.
The audience is silent and introspective. A man removes his fur hat and clutches it to his chest, chin lowered and eyes downcast. A single fat wet shiny tear rolls down my cheek. I’m dancing, baby / I feel like dying.
I am a ghost now / living those old scenes.
In an interview with Billboard, Olsen discussed the candor of Candi Staton, and said that the most powerful songs are saturated with sincerity. Olsen doesn’t hide behind persona (though it is certainly involved in her work, and not necessarily reductive). The hit “Shut Up Kiss Me”, is absent from the set, though she has played it during this tour. This feels significant.
Big Time is different from Olsen’s other albums. They are all distinct, but this one is strikingly so, because it is not different in the way I was expecting. I thought Olsen was diverging farther and farther from her twangy roots, each album a discrete point between her early work and something more avant-garde. But Big Time is like a return. It is also unprecedented for Olsen, and hit me like a ton of bricks, even more so live. Her influences, particularly Karen Dalton and Donny Hathaway come through and fall away in equal measure in this album, ultimately revealing a singular, idiosyncratic talent. I have always felt understood by this artist, and this album, with its wildly referential and pervasively honest feel, injected with incredible specificity, has arrived when I need it most. Big Time has a sentimentality and sincerity that makes me squirm in a good way. Its shimmering lullabies are an escape but also feel like profound acceptance. Olsen seems to recognize earnestness as the only path to healing. At the peak of “All the Flowers,” she cries, “Be alive, to try to be somebody.” In deciding to create this album, in spite of (and in conjunction with) her grief, she has completed the incredibly difficult task that she refers to here––living on, in earnest.