What a concert to start the year off on. I only learned MSPAINT was playing near me last week, but I knew instantly I had to go. Their 2023 album Post-American was one of my top 10 albums of the year and the kind of album that I just knew would be good live. Their aggression, their brash sound, and the ridiculous catchiness of some of their lyrics all promised a rager. And damn did it deliver. From the first second the band roared to life, the audience just erupted into utter pandemonium. Bodies crashing into bodies as DeeDee yelled out “Information in its purest form/ Resembles chemical components of chloroform.” Throughout their entire 11 song set, the energy never left that fever pitch. If anything, it only rose. 

A particularly spectacular high was “Hardwired,” the song I was most eagerly anticipating seeing live, which spawned some of the most vigorously energetic moshing I have seen in a long time. It was particularly notable because the Echo is a small venue of only 350 all shoved into a small room so it both made the moshing more cramped and also more personable because it was much the same people crashing into each other repeatedly. And with that personability arose a really heartwarming sense of catharsis and camaraderie with strangers that nothing can elicit quite like moshing to live music. Multiple times during calmer beats I would be high fiving and dapping up my fellow moshers, the energy palpable and electrifying. 

It was also just a friendly crowd, both in terms of moshing etiquette (I saw many people fall and immediately get scooped up by everyone around them) and general affability; one guy told me my hair was very soft and asked what conditioner I used, others joined me and my friends to talk about LOTR and 100 gecs. This friendliness was made all the funnier when we were later crashing into each other while yelling at the top of our lungs “What purpose do cages serve” and “Burn all the flags and the symbols of man.” And those lines specifically are some of my favorite examples of why MSPAINT are such a good live act: their music sounds like a revolutionary call to action as well as a simultaneous demand for a sacrifice of sweat to be delivered via our bodily collisions. And people fucking delivered. It was perhaps some of the most sustained energy I have ever seen in a mosh pit with that few people. Certainly there have been larger pits I have seen at festivals and larger shows, but with one of this size that was comprised of max 15-20 people in the middle consistently, it was immensely impressive that there was never a dull moment. There was also a great amount of crowd surfing, which I always love, and I got to both surf and stage dive. Even managed to snag one of the set lists on my way out. All in all, I had high expectations and they were still shattered: incredible show, incredible band, and incredible performance. And it was particularly exciting that this was MSPAINT’s first sold out show, so I was ecstatic that we as a crowd got to share that with them and I hope to see them many more times.