Since I attended JPEGMAFIA’s Sydney concert last year in July, JPEGMAFIA has only confirmed further what I stated to be true. That being that Peggy (as he is known to fans) “is of the breed of talented artists who just sound better live.” 2023 has once again proved that he is one of the hardest working, most beloved artists currently in the underground scene and the music scene in general.
He’s already released SCARING THE HOES this year alongside fellow underground O.G. Danny Brown. He has promised fans a new solo project and a remaster of his 10-year-old THE GHOST~POP TAPE, released under his old moniker, Devon Hendryx. And given that Peggy wrote, produced, and recorded almost 100 songs for his third album, All My Heroes Are Cornballs, I have no doubts about his promise.
In the meantime, however, SCARING THE HOES and Peggy’s previous work remain forever repeatable bangers, perfect for live performance. I have very little left to say in the preface, other than Peggy is a beast of a performer.
Although last year Peggy performed at the legendary Enmore Theatre, this year he took on the far smaller, less legendary, less intimidating UNSW Roundhouse. This venue was probably selected as the concert appears to be a more ‘last minute’ performance announced only a month earlier (JPEGMAFIA is already in Australia for the ongoing Listen Out Festival). But I can assure you that the performance remained uncompromised.
Peggy has always been a ‘raw’ artist, operating for his fans; on the Bandcamp page for his album LP!, he writes: “the only ones I care about now and forever are you my fans, I love u”. And the night at the Roundhouse felt like exactly that. Like last year’s Syndey performance and many of his performances in general, the stage was sparsely decorated, only adorned with his laptop from which he controlled the tracks throughout the night.
Opening to raucous reaction was “Lean Beef Patty”, the opener from SCARING THE HOES, followed by “1539 N. Calvert”, the opener from his sophomore project Veteran. As was expected, Peggy gave both songs his usual high energy, live performance rendition, ones that involve lyrics being belted out and limbs being thrashed around. Look to his performance of “Thug Tears” on the COLORS YouTube channel for an idea of what I’m talking about.
From the jump, the mosh-pit was hectic; many people decided it was too much early on and moved outwards to more tame sections. Thankfully, as far as I could tell, no one was injured. The crowd of mostly young people were fully into it, hyped and jumping all over the place. Peggy played songs from almost every album, all earning just as energetic a reaction as the others. He played classics from Veteran, such as “Rainbow Six” and “Baby I’m Bleeding”, bangers from SCARING THE HOES, including “Burfict!” and “Fentanyl Tester”, and more from LP! and All My Heroes Are Cornballs.
And of course, just as expected to fans of JPEGMAFIA, he performed his acapella, autotuned rendition of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. You can imagine almost the entire crowd crooning along. Around halfway through the set, members of the crowd managed to convince Peggy to play “Free the Frail” off Cornballs. Although he admitted that he didn’t remember the lyrics by heart, he gave it a shot later on using the lyrics from Google. Luckily, the crowd remembered most of the words.
A couple of times, it seemed that JPEGMAFIA didn’t have the beats on his laptop for songs the audience wanted to see performed, but he managed to find the correct music every time. Some may see this as a lack of preparation, but fans of his would no doubt view this as a display of his candidness and willingness to appease fans – I would know; I’m a huge fan of his. JPEGMAFIA managed to do precisely what he has always set out to accomplish: appeasing his true fans. The night lacked any BS and was immensely enjoyable. My only criticism: at only one hour long, it flew by in a second.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
JPEGMAFIA will be performing next at Listen Out Festival Sydney on September 30th – tickets HERE
Photo credit: Mushroom Creative House – Forum Melbourne 25/9
