I Matched Her Freak
My Review of Tinashe’s Match My Freak World, yes, WORLD Tour
This article is part of The G Spot, a weekly segment where criticista Gordistotle gives insight into the pop culture happenings of now through opinions or anecdotes on his life living in Toronto.
Pre-Concert
Let me set the scene–it’s like any other morning–I’m enjoying my breakfast and scrolling. All of a sudden something on the timeline hits me like a brick. A tweet along the lines of, “Tinashe tickets cheap as fuck, just bought some”. This random gay man on Twitter had no idea the promotion he was doing for her because I immediately put my coffee down and inquired. “I love Tinashe,” I thought to myself while navigating Ticketmaster.
There they were, the cheap as fuck Tinashe tickets–for only $40. I bought two, one for me and one for my boyfriend, of course. I couldn’t go alone. Who would match my freak?
As the days passed and the worries of the week piled on, Tinashe wasn’t necessarily a priority, even though she’s normally up there among things like how excited I am to eat breakfast tomorrow or what I’ll have for dinner. My days are normally occupied by thinking almost exclusively about food. Yes, last week’s article was written from experience. By the start of November, I had more or less forgotten I bought the tickets. I had gotten a new credit card the week I bought them so it got lost in the shuffle of all my other purchases. I had points accumulation blindness (PAB, google it).
I had tried to rally friends to come, and even plead with them at Gordsgiving that it would be a fun time, but no one took the bait. After being nodded off by everyone at the table, only one person entertained the idea of going: Sean’s friend Stirling, who said she would join us and later bought her ticket for a night out. Success! We had found another person to match our freak.
Night of the Concert
After work the three of us swiftly met up, ate dinner, and headed for Rebel. Doors opened at 7, and I didn’t want, but needed to get a good spot amongst the crowd. When we got there, I’ll be honest, I was shocked at how long the line was. I knew “Nasty” was popular, but not stretch all the way down Polson St popular. I was under the impression that we’d be at most within the first 20 people to arrive. After huddling for a few minutes in the cold, we made our way into one of the city’s most infamous nightclubs.
After securing our spot right in the middle of the venue, about 10 rows in front of the stage, there wasn’t much to do but twiddle our thumbs until the show began. Once the opening act, Raveena, took the stage, the wait felt even longer. She seemed like a sweet person, but her music didn’t leave much of an impression and the three of us grew impatient waiting for the actual show to start. Baby, we’re here for Tinashe, why’s the opener 45 minutes long and singing in soft-girl Baduisms? And to top it off she did an Aaliyah cover, At Your Best (You Are Corn). The girls were checking their watches and looking at Uber prices. It would have been time for a smoke break if not for my coveted spot. It’s all love, I just think Tinashe needs an opener that matches her freak.
Now I know this is a review of the concert but, the tickets were $40. If you came here to read an exact play-by-play, you should’ve showed out. If you’d followed See You Next Tuesday’s Twitter, you’d have seen I‘d been doing promo for the entire month. I hope I convinced at least one (1) person.
I’ll keep it brief. Tinashe put on an amazing show, she sang live, flawlessly executed her choreo along with her four hot gay (I assume) backup dancers (who weren’t trying to out-dance her, as most gay backup dancers do), and looked gorgeous while doing it. The hour-and-a-half setlist included hits, fan favourites, and deep cuts, and I couldn’t help but smile through the entire show. A personal highlight was her performance of “Save Room For Us”, one of her best tracks (in my opinion) that was only added to the set list recently. Thank you to the SweeTees that campaigned for its addition, I don’t know if I’d have been able to leave the venue without hearing it.
There is no better word to describe Tinashe than captivating. While everyone around me was recording every little bit of the show, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Are all the people recording ever even going to watch these videos? Tinashe is already a regular in my music video nights rotation and I paid $40 to see her with my eyes, not through a screen. Due to us being in the middle of the crowd, and me being what seemed like one of the only people not hiding behind a phone, it felt like it was just me and Nashe were singing every word to every song together. I even made a finger heart at her… and she did one back! I screamed! I died! The three of us were geeked, it was honestly such a special moment.
On the way out I tried harnessing SYNT’s ever-growing social media presence to try to get her attention on Twitter but alas– nothing...maybe one day. It’s alright, I still love you Tinashe.
Tinashe’s Overdue Success
As previously mentioned, baby, this is a WORLD tour, her first since 2014’s Aquarius World Tour. Ok, the BB/Ang3l Tour’s second leg was entirely in China (she’s randomly really popular there, ni shi better stan!) but I’m not counting that. This time she challenged the world to match her freak. Not just the northeast and mainland China.
Despite how underrated she is, Tinashe’s tour has been a massive success with much of it being attributed to “Nasty”, the hit of the summer (to me). With her one-way ticket out the khia asylum, she knew she had to keep the momentum going. All summer Tinashe performed at any and every event, from massive festivals like Coachella, to the opening of an envelope. It’s called promotion! Why was she at Cabana Pool Bar? Who knows, but I’m sure she gained a couple of fans from the performance. It’s all about building your audience, no matter the size of the crowd.
This dedication to keeping the trend going has helped Tinashe spin the meme of the week into a successful world tour that fans and non-fans alike couldn’t pass up for $40. While most may have come to hear “Nasty”, they left knowing she’s more than just a meme: she’s an incredibly talented artist with a solid creative vision and amazing music.
While some of us know Tinashe’s been pioneering within her genre for a decade, it may take the rest of the world a bit longer to catch up. Rebel was packed, and it seems so were most other nights on the tour. Next tour let’s hope we can book a better venue than Rebel, I’m thinking Budweiser Stage. Don’t worry, you know you can always count on a sale from me.