At Home with the Fairies at the Paris Paloma Show
The stage is not a new tool for 25-year-old Paris Paloma (she/they); it’s one she has mastered to serve her. Ebbing and flowing around the platform at Thalia Hall, Paloma is the image of a fairy incarnate. Graceful yet strong, their presence fills the entire concert hall with divine energy. The Cacophony Tour setlist is 16 songs long, including her breakout tune “labour” and a sprinkling of others from her album Cacophony. Opening the show with “my mind (now),” an almost meditative reflection, Paloma sets the stage for the concert of a lifetime. She brings out Sarah Julia, the show’s openers, for a collective rendition of “knitting song” that exemplifies the beauty in generational female relationships. The enchantment continues when Paloma shares an unreleased song titled “Good Boy” which is a direct attack on the patriarchy that compares weak men to naive puppies. Paloma’s music has always been a force of political action, and their performance only brings this to life.
PHOTOS BY CHARLOTTE STRAZIS
Unpacking gender struggles in “last woman on earth,” Paloma sings the lines, “For the first time since I drew breath, I'm undesirable again” provoking an image of what it is like to be a woman in a world that objectifies you. In the back half of the setlist, Paloma begins “bones on the beach” solo, secretly the singer’s favorite song of her 2024 album. The penultimate song played by Paloma is “yeti.” Thalia Hall is lit up beautifully by almost every audience member’s phone flashlight as she plays out the final notes of the show. Light refracting off the walls creates the serenity found in snowfall, as alluded to in the music.
Paloma’s most popular song “labour” only makes sense as the conclusion to the Cacophony Tour. The energy created in the repetition of the lines “All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid / Nymph, then a virgin, nurse, then a servant / Just an appendage, live to attend him / So that he never lifts a finger / 24/7 baby machine / So he can live out his picket-fence dreams / It's not an act of love if you make her / You make me do too much labour” throughout the venue is palpable. It brought me to tears to feel the full force of such powerful lines woven together as a collective. It created a cacophony. An enclave. A community.
PHOTOS BY CHARLOTTE STRAZIS
While Paloma’s songs reflect red-hot rage around her existence as a feminine presenting human being, the joy cast on her face during her performance is quite the opposite. Further, this joy is reflected in the faces of the audience members as they watch the show in awe around them. I have never seen such a harmonious relationship between a live crowd and an artist.
Relationships are a pillar of Paloma’s music and fanbase. Magic exists not only in their talent for music but in Paloma’s ability to bring people together. A piece of the Cacophony Tour is the show Paloma creates on stage, whereas the other half is the connections forged through the experience itself. When attending the tour, it's encouraged that you bring fairy notes to exchange with your fellow concertgoers, and books to leave in the Little Library of Paris Paloma and show your wings.
The Cacophony Tour is quite literally that – a cacophony of voices singing together to create one. While Paloma encouraged audience interaction, it was often given to her freely in full force. Audience interaction was boundless as it expanded past just singing the lyrics in the concert hall. As audience members began to form dance circles on the venue’s floor after the show to discord requested songs, the importance of community forging through action became even more evident. Strangers holding hands, laughing, singing, dancing. It was a moment that will be burned into my memory forever. A beauty that cannot be replaced. An unbridled joy. Candlelight in the dark. I left that show changed in more ways than one, but most importantly with a new sense of what it means to relate to others through rage, elation, and music.
