On a dewy Wednesday evening in June, sometime around seven o’clock, you’ll find a line outside of the Fine Line music venue just west of the Mississippi. Inside, from a friendly eight o’ clock ‘till around ten thirty, this two-bar, mid-sized concert hall houses a full turnout for performances by meg elsier and Blondshell. 

The evening started with our first performers under the name meg elsier, a band modest in size and cast in purple. Through the show, we heard meg and accompaniment sing homage to their hometown in Tennessee. The song “eastside” off of 2024 album “spittake” posited a nostalgia and pride of ones’ domain in the east side of Nashville, described as “cool” and vetted by the artist. meg flaunted an ease on the stage, bantering with attentive attendees between songs, and keeping the crowd engaged with a dynamic presence. A fade to orange, then cyan. Met with a tasteful cover of “Cool” by the iconic vocalist Gwen Stefani, meg continued through the set with the group’s top streamed song on Spotify, “ifshitfuq” off of the same 2024 record. 

After a brief visit to the upstairs balcony of the Fine Line venue in the North Loop of Minneapolis, and refreshed with a Shirley Temple, we settled into the opening of Blondshell. Hailing from New York then California, Sabrina, the face of Blondshell, greets the crowd with introspective songwriting and mesmerizing vocals. 

In the Minneapolis segment of an International tour, Blondshell treated us to live harmonies, dreamy guitar, and lyricism so poetic you’d think you were reading a novel. Our crowd sang passionately along to the song “Sepsis” off of Blondshells’ 2023 self-titled album, only to further please the audience with “Change” featured on “If You Asked For A Picture” (An album only over a month old)! “Olympus” comes next, and all 45 baseball caps within my field of vision begin to sway, with many joining in on the chorus. The complementary acoustic and warped electric guitars brought the show to a cover of Addison Rae’s “Diet Pepsi”, toned to an in-touch alto that stirred recollection in the core of many twenty-somethings in the crowd. As the show draws to a close, both droning guitars and flickering lights draw out our guests once again, ending with two more songs in an encore. Features off of the contemporary album included “Event of a Fire” and “23’s A Baby”, received with adoration from the swells of a sold-out show.