meg elsier Opens for Blondshell at Metro Chicago: Live Review
- Abby Anderson
- Jun 17
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 27
On a post-rainstorm, hazy, warm summer Friday night in the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago, for only her second stop on tour alongside shoegaze-rock star. Blondshell, alt-pop/rock artist meg elsier glittered and kicked through a suckerpunch set of hair-raising rock, basking in the vintage-grunge of Metro. Between the two female rockstars, meg elsier and Blondshell delivered an evening of music and onstage banter that made the "sold out" letters posted under their names on the iconic Metro seem like a no-brainer.
Opening for Blondshell, meg elsier delivered a set that set the sonic tone for her headlining tour partner, while remaining distinctly personable and entertaining, engaging in an episodic spiral of oversharing, great music, and deeply unserious stage banter. Decked out in a rhinestoned baseball cap, equally rhinestoned Chicago Cubs t-shirt, and cowboy boots, meg looked and acted the part of the cool, chic rockstar she's destined to be, while also obviously reveling in how huge of a fan she is of the artists she shares the stage with. Beaming with joy as she exclaimed that this was her first show in the Windy City, meg cracked open her set with her high-powered "dog," which made the unlikely stoicism of "spittake" even more overt. From there, meg's nostalgia pop-rock set unraveled like a zine scrawled at 3 a.m.: messy, honest, and pulsing with chaotic heart.
Elsier checked all the boxes for an opening set, hitting an unreleased song in "cheater," a cover she joked came to find a place on her setlist thanks to her tour crew, and a growing fan-favorite in "sportscar", a track she confessed has come to see the light of day because she couldn’t resist playing live. It wasn’t hard to see why: this was the moment meg really hit her momentum, grinning like she was stealing her own thunder.
The interstitials between songs were their own kind of performance art. At one point, she let out a theatrical scream—"sorry I’m tuning and it’s really hard to do close to the mic!"—somewhere between performance anxiety and improv comedy. She introduced her band with an extended bit about what kind of cars they drive, an absurdist flair that made the crowd feel like they were all in on some inside joke. And her dedication for her song “baby” was equally as hilariously sincere: "I'm the most immature person, so this song is dedicated to anyone who's a baby."
Elsier closed her set with "forlyleinsanfrancisco", a song about “a dude who doesn’t know how to party” that felt like a punchline disguised as a lament. Hitting her biggest hits from her debut LP spittake, meg crossed the finish line with the same grin she started with, nailing every duty of the opening act with the finesse that makes it hard to believe she'd just joined Blondshell's touring crew less than 48 hours prior.
In the hands of a less captivating artist, the charming chaos and bone-shaking rock of the whole thing might have unraveled. But meg elsier thrives in the unraveling, geniusly using her opening set to establish her as having the raw, unpredictable energy of a headliner in the making - and a rising rockstar that proves she's impossible to ignore.
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