Photo Gallery: Halsey @ The Vic Theatre
There’s no shortage of great art that has been made in the name of insecurity. New Jersey born Halsey (actual name Ashley Nicolette Frangipane) now joins that ever growing club. Her 2015 long playing debut Badlands hit number 2 on Billboard’s album chart upon its release earlier this year. And it did it the old fashion way: Word of mouth. Of course, in today’s age that means fueled by social media, but that still doesn’t diminish the fact that she has built her following show by show, city by city and drew in her dedicated, restless souls with very little radio support.
The lyrics are a peek into her uncomfortably personal journal entries and the music that backs them is a marriage of hip-hop beats, twitchy, blippy rhythms and each bit of vitriol gets delivered with hard rock ferocity. On the first of her sold-out, two night residency Wednesday and Thursday at Chicago’s Vic Theatre, her faithful came to her in droves, shouting back every phrase, missive and nuance in an already surprisingly mature body of work. From here on out, the rooms she fills are only going to get larger.
And that isn’t simple conjecture from an observing, hypothesizing scribe. She’s already booked for a Madison Square Garden gig next year. Oregon-based quartet Flor paid witness to the meteoric rise from their view as the evening’s opening act.
– Words and photos by Curt Baran
Category: Featured
