MAC DEMARCO: Loveable Gap-toothed Maniac
Mac DeMarco, 27 year old Canadian musician/notorious goofball, is known for his eccentric stage presence and extraordinary performances. He undoubtedly lived up to this reputation while performing to an enthusiastic crowd at Brixton Academy last night.
Mac waltzed onto stage to the Godfather theme song, and began entertaining the audience with his infamous ‘Salad Days’; instantly amping up the crowd for a hyperactive, groovy set. DeMarco featured some of his popular songs, ‘Ode to Viceroy’ and ‘My Kind Of Woman’, indulging his loyal fans with synthy and relaxing nostalgia while adding a new twist to his tunes. “I think that’s the thing,” DeMarco says, “we learn them a certain way at first, and then just through playing them so often, they kind of change. My band puts in their own touches and stuff”. Mac rants, “I don’t really understand contemporary music that well, especially top 40 stuff nowadays. It’s not really appealing to me at all”, as he made clear during his concert by singing a full cover of Vanessa Carlton’s ‘A Thousand Miles’, repeating the lyrics as only, “making my way downtown…”, over and over again.
Mac creates an open environment for his fans, where like-minded people can come to a show and forget about life for a while. “If people like it that’s great”, Mac explains, “if they don’t that’s also fine. Hey now, it’s just rock n roll; hell yeah baby”. It is evident that every single person in the crowd was enjoying every moment, completely unified in the madness that is Mac DeMarco. The crowd was packed like sardines in front of the stage, and as the band began ‘Cooking Up Something Good’ the crowd erupted in dance with the initial comping of the guitar. This song is a perfect example of the relatable angst that Mac attributes to growing up in a suburban neighbourhood as a rebellious teenage millennial, coupled by a deeper story of a father figure harvesting drugs in a basement. Mac admits, “The album’s kinda personal and I wasn’t checkin’ myself as I was writing it. So you know, it’s funny to write a personal song then remember, ‘oh yeah i’m showing this to people’”. Each song that Mac performs reveals a passionate and care-free artist, welcoming us into his personal world with a warm gap-toothed smile.
Not only is Mac an entertaining musician and performer, but also a very talented artist. Mac spoke about the controversy surrounding the artwork he designed for his latest album cover. “It’s just scribbles. Some said that I ripped off Keith Haring and I was like, shut the fuck up. We were running out of time so I just decided, there ya go. I do like to draw, I used to draw all my old album covers back in the day... so just a little throwback from Maccy boy, you know? Old school style”.
This loveable, off-the-wall king spent the first half of his show serenading the audience with his alternative jazzy melodies, before letting loose the ‘demon’ he proudly boasts. When a fan jumps on stage mid-performance, they don’t expect to get kissed by the performer, but nothing is to be unexpected at a Mac DeMarco show. Not only do you sign up for an incredible musical performance, but you agree to embark on an evening full of manic entertainment. Mac has been known in the past to welcome his fans not only on stage, but also into his home.
DeMarco gave out his New York home address to his listeners at the end of his album “Another One”, where he had over 30 fans come visit him in just one week. Mac explained, “We had some young people, some really old people, just all kinds of people you know? It was really cool, but sometimes it became a little bit annoying. But for the most part it was pretty good haha. Most people that were showing up were very nice, polite, and just curious people, so it was never really a problem”.
You could say Mac always knew how to make people come together. During the London concert, DeMarco went from giving a passionate and inspiring speech proclaiming his barbaric love for the salt-beef bagels of Brick Lane, to organizing the crowd to come together and perform a ‘Mexican fart’. Mac is known for extending his songs into sometimes half an hour, weaving in and out of similar tunes while adding his own wacky antics. The crowd was not disappointed, as the last song ‘Still Together’ included 30 minutes of a topless Mac miming karate moves, screaming like a werewolf, drinking and smoking, covering songs (both forwards and reverse), and crowd-surfing the entire floor of Brixton Academy while the band serenaded us with ‘Sixpence None the Richer’.
The charismatic and talented Mac DeMarco provided a night of both extraordinary music, and absurd and loveable entertainment. It’s safe to say that, once you’ve seen a Mac DeMarco concert, you’ve seen it all.