King Princess at the Riviera Theatre

There was something so invigorating about seeing an icon bloom right in front of your eyes. Strike that— King Princess bloomed years ago, she’s just continuing to grow more leaves and appendages each time she dominated a stage with the confidence and intensity of a veteran performer. 

I was lucky enough to catch her concert last week at The Riviera Theatre, and it made me fall more in love with her. I saw her for the first time this past summer at Mo Pop Music Festival, and she left every ounce of herself on that stage; she exceeded herself with an even more magnetic performance last week. 

With a local drag queen opener, named Irregular Girl, and another queen hosting the concert and hyping up the crowd, King Princess embodied the queer community. Her name was synonymous with it. 

King Princess came out on stage amongst raging guitars as her band members filled in. She sauntered over to a piano with her name emblazoned on it, smoking a cigarette; I couldn’t help but think of all of the performers that came before her that would be so proud to see a young queer person being so authentic and unapologetically themselves. 

The stage looked almost like a dreamscape. There were three platforms with the tallest one in the center with stairs down the front. There was a giant frame around the back of the stage with a tapestry of a classical American landscape painting underneath it. Behind the middle platform there was a mirror with giant hands caressing it. And, on the keyboard there was of course a pride flag. 

King Princess herself wore a Bulls jersey and a skirt/pant combo with a shimmery belt. She pulled this off tremendously mostly because she didn’t care one iota what anybody in the entire venue thought of her. 

There was never a blip in the show, she maintained control and I could tell she loved that power. King Princess easily switched from being a sole frontwoman, to shredding on her guitar, to sitting down for a quieter piano ballad. It all felt natural. There was one moment where there was a difficulty with the lights, but she just took the moment to joke about how she lip-synched and needed every cue possible to perform. The whole crowd laughed, including herself. She didn’t lip-synch, she was a hot mic 100% of the time.

She had this immediate comfortableness on stage, a power that almost made me nervous. It made me question whether or not I wore a cool enough shirt to be in her presence. She kept referring to the crowd as “Chicag-y”. She was ultimately cool, because she was completely as ease. The show was sold-out, and she was among her fans, she didn’t have to win anybody over. After asking the audience questions, she prompted them to respond by saying “Yes, Miss King”, and the crowd promptly followed her directions. 

She loved her songs and knew their impact on the audience. She also was aware how talented she was and said things like, “Oh yeah, my record is great, 10 points, 10 points.” She was never insecure or questioning her space, she recognized that she deserved it. She knew her songs were hits and announced their status before playing her most well-known songs like “Upper West Side” and “1950”. 

She felt very theatrical when she performed, whether it be the large grunt after her song “Talia” which dealt with a lost love, or her smashing a bouquet of flowers on the stage during “Meet Me at the Party.” She came out for the encore with leather pants and a wrestling belt that had a giant belt buckle that said KING on it. All of it felt valid and not forced in the slightest, they made complete sense and only added to the atmosphere. 

Even though King Princess was a pop/rock star, (her songs mix genres, she’s not easily categorized), she felt like she could easily be a member in her own audience. Some of her hometown friends were in the balcony and she called out to them and waved before she played her last song, “Ohio”. Her friends were all hamming up the spotlight and yelling jokes down at her and she said blushing into the mic, “Guys, can you stop distracting me, we’ve got to rock out”, and then proceeded to do so.

Her songs were universal, about love and heartbreak, and they were anthems for everyone not just those of the LGBTQ+ community. Fans threw her flowers as she finished her set, rolling around on the ground with her guitar, right before she smashed it to bits. The rock star we needed and deserved in 2020 just so happened to write sad lesbian love songs, and luckily King Princess was here to fill that void.