The Briston Maroney Experience: Sunflower World Tour (Pt. 2)
By Allyson J.L. Clayton
Oh, you’ve come back for more? Well, dear reader, this author is delighted to re-make your acquaintance. Please, grab a snack, sit back, and scroll!
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February 28th, 2022–Madison, WI (The Majestic Theater)
Flash forward: it’s a new year, new me. My birthday just passed and I turned…an age. Euphoria Season 2 has just ended, nature was healing. It’s been five more months and we are back on the road for the Sunflower World Tour, Pt. 2. Hailey and I make our way to Madison, WI four our first show this year.
The band is the same, but the venues are bigger and the crowds are more dedicated. The word has gotten out about Briston Maroney! We get in line earlier than before and make fast friends with the girls right in front of us. Cardinal Concert Tip #1: make friends in line and bring a blanket.
Later, we grasp our grubby little hands on the stage as Genevive Stokes leaves us mesmerized and we prepare to see Briston! Briston! Briston! The crowd’s energy is already slightly chaotic and we all chant for Briston to come out–no faltering this time. The house lights go down, everything goes dark and quiet with anticipation. We hear the jaunty flute from Canned Heat’s “Going Up The Country” begin to play. A curated intro, you say? The band, consisting of Nathan, the drummer to end all drummers, Devin, the guitarist to end all guitarists, and Zack, the bassist to end all bassists, come on stage with Briston, still in the dark, except for the few flashes from the crowd trying to get a glimpse of the boys. We all cheer as they set up and atmospheric sounds fill the venue. There are some sounds on tape, unintelligible voices and a few terse strokes on the guitar from Briston. There is a much more serious tone to this show than the last. I am positively bursting with excitement.
“We’re there?”
“Where?”
“Here!”
The golden yellow LEDs burst on, and it sets the stage on fire. Briston gives the crowd a thumbs up and starts to sing.
“Halfway home,you caught me at the station/struck me up, with quiet conversation….”
A new setlist, sophisticated lighting, sunflowers galore, more crop-tops and the same infectious energy he brings to every show. It’s go-time, baby!
March 1st, 2022–St. Paul, MN (Amsterdam Bar & Hall)
Immediately, you could feel a shift in the energy from one night to the other. Every crowd brings different things with them into the venue. I was feeling particularly anxious…there was just something in the air. We pushed on and the show still, for lack of a better phrase, went the *flip* off. I relayed my gripe that my favorite song, “The Garden”, was no longer on the setlist and Briston said “sucks to suck!” (For legal purposes, this is a joke, he said nothing of the sort.)
This was the last night Genevive and her crew would be on the tour so we b-lined for the merch table to say our goodbyes and give our praises as she was quickly becoming our new fave. Go listen or else!
March 2nd, 2022–St. Paul, MN (Taco Bell Parking Lot)
It was almost one in the morning, Hailey and I were, as usual, sitting in the Taco Bell parking lot, silently eating our black bean Crunchwrap Supremes and sipping on our large Baja Blasts (#notanad). I start to go over the events of the last few days and do my best to really feel it. To feel the weight the meaning these songs hold for me and what it means to be able to experience live music this way. To have the privilege to be in harmony with these songs and the person who wrote them. Seemingly out of nowhere, I hit Hailey with that “I'm just so grateful we get to do this together.” And the tears flow damningly. Briston Maroney, you have ruined us. Thankssomuch!
March 3rd, 2022–Chicago, IL (Lincoln Hall)
We drove into Chicago after sleeping off the sob-fest and enjoyed a night of pizza slices bigger than our heads, a little vino, and every Briston Maroney music video in existence. Then, we raged. A.k.a we went to another show…
Chicago was absolutely buzzing for a Thursday night in March and we enmeshed with that frequency instantly. We took this show easier than anticipated because, like the barricade snobs that we are, if we aren’t going to be first row, we’re going to the back so we can breathe. I got a few drinks at the bar, we took the cutest photo booth pictures you could ever imagine (in my humblest opinion), and watched the show from atop the stairs next to the sound booth. Briston showed off his new shiny red guitar and we all flipped him off! (It’s part of a song, I promise!)
We spent another night in Chicago, woke up to explore the city, or to be quite honest, the city’s Cheesecake Factory, and then headed to Detroit.
March 4th, 2022–Detroit/Ferndale, MI (The Loving Touch)
With a name for a venue like “The Loving Touch”, you would expect this show to be nothing less than, well, lovely! And it was! Just as lovely as the poor girl who threw up while she was running towards the bathroom. Props to her, she just kept walking, never looking back, throw-up on the ramp to the pit, be damned!
Sorry for that mental image. I should have warned that this was an immersive experience!
Jackie Hayes had joined the tour the night before in Chicago and gave us some infectious drum beats and visions of well-timed highkicks to dream of. Again, check her out, or else!
After the show, I bothered the boys of Briston & Co. for some conversation and gifts. I made us all matching necklaces (that broke rather easily…sorry about that boys…) and we took a couple pictures as we said our goodbyes–our last show until Nashville!
*Harry Styles voice* Orrrrrrr was it?!
March 14th, 2022–New York, NY–Bowery Ballroom
We did, in fact, go home after Detroit but it felt wrong! It was almost as if we were addicted…to…the…sound…(we absolutely are). And luckily for the two of us, we are enablers and also reckless with money! Yay! And thus, we booked a 24-hour round trip to NYC, no hotel, to see Briston Freakin’ Maroney for the 9th time on the same tour…and that’s not all!
March 18th, 2022–Atlanta, GA (Masquerade (Hell))
See, here’s the thing you need to understand: we are insane. We would quite literally go anywhere and everywhere in order to see our favorite bands play live. So, that’s exactly what we did. We were already on our way to Nashville, and Atlanta is only 4 hours farther, it seemed almost absurd to miss that show! We arrived mere minutes before The Briston Maroney Experience went on stage and thrashed our little hearts out in the back of the venue.
On to the next….and the next!
March 19th-20th, 2022–Nashville, TN (The Basement East)
Look at us. Who woulda thought! We finally made it to Nashville, the last stop on the tour, where Briston & Co. call home. It was hard to know how the Nashville crowd would react. I assumed a lot in attendance would be friends and family and other musicians in the Nashville scene. Would they be reserved and “professional”? Had they seen the show too many times to care? Neither were true! It turns out Nashville goes bonkers for Briston Maroney. The ground of The Basement East bounced like a trampoline. They moshed, they sang and screamed and scream-sang at the top of their lungs! We all sweated on each other like we might never sweat again!
Again, I am so sorry for that mental image!
Night 1
Mercury, a local indie band whose single “I Don’t Know You Like I Used To” had already gotten comfortable in my Spotify On Repeat playlist, opened the first night in Nashville. It felt like they were headlining the Briston Maroney show, I was so immersed. AND THEY COVERED “BRUTAL” BY OLIVIA RODRIGO! Hello! Can you hear me screaming?!
Night 2
The clock struck 7:48 p.m. on the last night of the tour and I was already crying in the club. I took my moment to be emotional and grieve the fact that: one, I am plum out of money now, and two, I have to say goodbye to these angel boys.
Then, Future Crib melted our faces off and it was impossible to stay sad. Whatever is in the water in Nashville, I need it: stat.
If you don’t leave every show with the audacity to think you could start touring right this second, did you even go to the show?
To make matters even worse, as the band came back on stage, Briston asked if he could play something new. And the crowd said no! Yet, they persisted and made scrambled eggs with my brain, right on stage! It felt like we were all in The Kitchen (by Briston Maroney) together! El-oh-el, do you get it? The song he sang was….called “The Kitchen”. 🤓
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And that, dear reader, is where we lay our scene–all across the good ol’ US of A, going wherever the music takes us. If you haven’t seen Briston live yet, what are you waiting for?! If you have read this far, I can’t thank you enough for your time and hopefully a few giggles, maybe even a tear or two! Live music is my everything and I am so happy to share my experiences with it, with you, in this way. Where should we go next?
Check out my Sunflower World Tour zine here, or take some time to watch some of the micro-vlogs I made for the Pleaser Instagram & Tiktok!
