Gus Dapperton’s pop transcends the bedroom

I am always shocked by the number of people that show up for Gus Dapperton shows in San Francisco. The first shock came earlier this year in April at the Rickshaw Stop. I arrived twenty minutes after doors opened and found myself towards the back of the venue. On November 6th, The Chapel offered me a second chance to see the indie artist without having to stand on my toes to actually see him. This time I was prepared. I arrived at the venue 30 minutes before doors only to be greeted by a line that extended two buildings passed the Chapel. Slightly annoyed, I got in line and passed the time by eavesdropping on the people next to me. As I listened to them complain about school work, typical college conversations, I started to notice some buzzwords. They were referring to their professors as “Mr” and “Mrs,” and someone mentioned the word “curfew.” I glanced around me to get a better look at the faces painted by the yellow street lights. These people weren’t in college.

When I got to the entrance I handed my ID to the bouncer. As I walked into the sea of X marked hands, I slid the sleeves of my jacket further down to hide the ink free tops of my hands. My early arrival paid off when I found myself only a few people away from the stage. But that victory was quickly overshadowed by the realization of how close I was to all of those high schoolers. I assumed that my unsettling reaction to them was the product of annoyance. Why would I, a sophisticated 21-year-old, want to spend my night with a bunch of local teenagers?

When the lights dimmed, my thoughts spiraled out of control to the soundtrack of the opening act, Beshken. Technically, I had willingly decided to spend my night with a bunch of local teenagers. Presumably, we had similar taste in music and I didn’t know how to feel about that. What was I listening to when I was their age? Did I have any artists in common with pretentious 21-year-olds? My reflection reminded me of an opinion piece on bedroom pop, the genre that Dapperton is often categorized as, that went up on the site in February of this year. In the piece, Spence reflects on his ambivalence towards the genre: “I realized more and more that what was actually upsetting me was more akin to jealousy. I still don’t know exactly where the jealousy comes from. On some level, maybe I want to be in a bedroom pop band…Or maybe I’m just jealous because these bands look like they’re having a better time than me.”

There it was. I was jealous. What was I doing on a Tuesday night when I was a teenager? I definitely wasn’t at a cool concert with a big group of friends. For me, Dapperton’s bedroom pop took me back to nights of solitude spent in my own bedroom. His saturated sounds engulfed me with the same warmth that radiated off my sheets after lying in them for too long rewatching the same movies, listening to the same songs. For those teenagers, Dapperton’s bedroom pop had pushed them outside of the space in which the music suggests it’s created and consumed.

When the lights dimmed for a second time, Gus Dapperton exploded onto the stage with pizzazz and his voice fizzled around the room like a just-opened can of 7-Up. The further into the show, the more I forgot about my jealousy. By the time Dapperton played the fan favorite, “I’m Just Snacking,” the crowd’s kinetic energy had shifted me even closer to the stage. I was able to get a better look at Dapperton and his band. From the looks on their faces, they were experiencing unbridled joy, and so was I.  

The final song was a cover of the Isley Brothers and the Beatles classic, “Twist and Shout.” Even though the crowd’s excitement seemed to peak during this song, I wished they would come back out for an encore. They had ended their set at the Rickshaw Stop with the same song, and I desperately needed my last memory of the night to be something new and refreshing. My wish was granted, and the band came back out for one last song, their newest single “World Class Cinema.” The song features slight variations of Dapperton’s usual lyrical and musical styles. The music is bouncier than the tracks on his last EP, You Think You’re a Comic! (2018). “World Class Cinema” is a nod toward Dapperton’s future music, a future that has outgrown the bedroom it was conceived in. The music video shows Dapperton sucked up in his cinematic dreams, but at the Chapel, his dreams are a reality he creates onstage through music. Gus Dapperton has somehow managed to be present in the real world without sacrificing his immersion in the worlds of film and music. Walking home that night, my body felt heavy. It wasn’t the sickly kind of heavy that accompanied jealousy. I was no longer jealous. Instead, the pleasant weight came from the reassurance that I could live in three worlds at once.

Article and Photos by Rebekah Gonzalez