Serotonin with Girl in Red

It’s with electric guitars and flashing red lights that Girl in Red opened her sold-out concert in San Francisco on the 11th of April. At the Regency Ballroom, in front of a crowd of mostly young women, she gave an outstanding performance that included perfect vocals, sneak peaks of new songs, and even a phone call with an audience member’s mother.

As I drove into the city on a seemingly uneventful Monday night, I had little to no expectations for the show ahead of me. Knowing it was a highly anticipated sold out concert brought me some excitement, however I was pretty close to clueless. Girl in Red is an artist I knew very little about, other than that I deeply enjoy her song “Serotonin” from her most recent album if i could make it go quiet (2021). My simple love for this song began a little over a year ago when my brother and I coincidentally went through a couple of rough patches on our “mental health journeys.” Both exploding with anxiety, we took refuge singing our hearts out to some of the most relatable lyrics we had heard in a long time. 

Girl in Red—also known as Marie Ulven Ringheim—is one of the most talented rising artists of her generation. Originally from Norway, her music has now crossed borders taking her this year on an international tour across Europe and America. Famous since she released her first single in 2018 ‘I wanna be your girlfriend’, Girl in Red’s music continues to be appreciated for its unique indie style and for its theme: love songs to women.

I must admit that I was not prepared for the intensity of this concert. The energy and joy Girl in Red put into her performance was a delight to watch. For an hour straight she jumps and runs across the stage while singing energetic songs. The energy was contagious, spreading like an infectious disease of involuntary muscle spasms: no one could contain themselves from dancing. As the show progressed the wooden floors of the ballroom shook with every jump and dance of the audience. 

It was also impressive to see how everyone in the concert hall seemed to know all her lyrics. The excitement at the start of every single song was palpable and the Regency Ballroom was quickly filled with voices screaming some of her most famous lines such as “I am running low on serotonin” and “I don’t want to be your friend, I want to kiss your lips”. I found an overwhelming amount of joy in seeing the ways in which Girl in Red has incorporated tropes of rock music into her sound. As a genre, rock has historically been dominated by straight men, but Girl in Red allowed for rock music to exist in a boundless limitless space through her lyrical expression of queerness via the eyes of young women.

Nevertheless, my main take away from this concert is how down to earth and ‘real’ Marie is. She’s not hiding behind a persona or putting herself on a pedestal. What she says in fleeting moments between each song reminds us, in the end, she is just a 24-year-old young adult trying to navigate life. The honesty and proximity she maintained with her audience throughout the concert was simply captivating. She told us about the new songs she’d written in her hotel room, her fears of having endless writer’s block, shared memories of current and past relationships and even helped a fan come out to her mother over the phone mid concert. At the end of the show, I was heart-warmed by this artist and her authenticity.

To wrap the show up perfectly,
Marie took the harrowing adventure of crowd surfing from the stage to the bar behind the crowd. As my friend and I helped lift her towards the back of the venue, we were left overflowing with laughter and sincere euphoria. When the fluorescent lights died down I felt each audience member collectively return to their realities, even the confused fathers who had brought their adolescent offspring to the very un-PG13 show. This concert was one of the best of the year and we will be impatiently waiting for whatever she has coming up next. I can definitely say Girl in Red gave us, along with a great show, the serotonin we had all been lacking. 

Written by Layla Mahmoud

Photos by Layla Mahmoud