hold your inner child
Jan. 10th, 2023 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
is what rina sawayama said is the meaning of the hold the girl album and is a lesson she learned from her therapist through the process of creating said album, this being shared at the hold the girl auckland show i went to last night. this post is just a re-cap of the show from my perspective.
i turned up an hour and a half before doors opened which i thought was cutting it a bit close (although i haven't been to a concert in about 4 years and being a former twenty one pilots stan warps your perception of acceptable concert line-up durations) but i ended up making it really close to the front, even at one point being in the second row. i stayed at the side of the stage rather than the centre due to being paranoid about passing out despite drinking copious amounts of water beforehand, and i kinda wish i took the risk of going more in the centre, but i can't change the past. i was still quite close to her at points and wow she's very hot.
there was no announcement of an opening act but a few people in the pit who could see the side of the stage noticed that there would be a dj called zeki on before rina and he was quite fun and totally was the right guy to book for the event as from what i could tell he played quite a bit of arca, some m.i.a and marry the night by lady gaga. i'm not sure who's in charge of the songs played before the concert within the venue, whether that's rina herself or the venue operators, but they knew their audience too as songs that played included cozy and alien superstar by beyoncé, dancing on my own by robyn and vroom vroom by charli xcx.
the show itself was so fun! it felt short but she did say it was 90 minutes.. i don't know if that's typical of a concert or not. i liked that at the start she told us the journey we'd go on through different genres such as rock and industrial and then said she hopes we're happy and healed by the end of it. it really did feel like a journey. i wasn't the biggest fan of the song before the concert but rina performing send my love to john while sitting down and just having her guitar player beside her while the audience put their lights on was a very special moment. i also really loved at the end how she did this call and response thing during this hell, our side sang "got my invitation to eternal damnation" while the other side sang "get in line, pass the wine, bitch, we're going straight to hell" and we were split in the middle while facing each other.
i did look at the setlist beforehand and didn't remember cherry on it BUT SHE PERFORMED IT FOR US? WHICH IS CRAZY? cherry especially felt so euphoric to experience in person, just straight up classic pop and the rainbow lights were a cute touch. there might have been a few other song change ups but i'm not too sure.
overall, had a lovely night and very much enjoyed myself.
setlist:
- minor feelings
- hold the girl
- catch me in the air
- hurricanes
- your age
- imagining
- stfu!
- frankenstein
- holy ('til you let me go)
- bad friend
- send my love to john
- forgiveness
- cherry
- lucid / beg for you
- comme des garçons (like the boys)
- xs
- encore: this hell


i turned up an hour and a half before doors opened which i thought was cutting it a bit close (although i haven't been to a concert in about 4 years and being a former twenty one pilots stan warps your perception of acceptable concert line-up durations) but i ended up making it really close to the front, even at one point being in the second row. i stayed at the side of the stage rather than the centre due to being paranoid about passing out despite drinking copious amounts of water beforehand, and i kinda wish i took the risk of going more in the centre, but i can't change the past. i was still quite close to her at points and wow she's very hot.
there was no announcement of an opening act but a few people in the pit who could see the side of the stage noticed that there would be a dj called zeki on before rina and he was quite fun and totally was the right guy to book for the event as from what i could tell he played quite a bit of arca, some m.i.a and marry the night by lady gaga. i'm not sure who's in charge of the songs played before the concert within the venue, whether that's rina herself or the venue operators, but they knew their audience too as songs that played included cozy and alien superstar by beyoncé, dancing on my own by robyn and vroom vroom by charli xcx.
the show itself was so fun! it felt short but she did say it was 90 minutes.. i don't know if that's typical of a concert or not. i liked that at the start she told us the journey we'd go on through different genres such as rock and industrial and then said she hopes we're happy and healed by the end of it. it really did feel like a journey. i wasn't the biggest fan of the song before the concert but rina performing send my love to john while sitting down and just having her guitar player beside her while the audience put their lights on was a very special moment. i also really loved at the end how she did this call and response thing during this hell, our side sang "got my invitation to eternal damnation" while the other side sang "get in line, pass the wine, bitch, we're going straight to hell" and we were split in the middle while facing each other.
i did look at the setlist beforehand and didn't remember cherry on it BUT SHE PERFORMED IT FOR US? WHICH IS CRAZY? cherry especially felt so euphoric to experience in person, just straight up classic pop and the rainbow lights were a cute touch. there might have been a few other song change ups but i'm not too sure.
overall, had a lovely night and very much enjoyed myself.
setlist:
- minor feelings
- hold the girl
- catch me in the air
- hurricanes
- your age
- imagining
- stfu!
- frankenstein
- holy ('til you let me go)
- bad friend
- send my love to john
- forgiveness
- cherry
- lucid / beg for you
- comme des garçons (like the boys)
- xs
- encore: this hell