Mac DeMarco jumps to crowd from second story balcony

Mac DeMarco and his band played an amazing show at the Roseland Theater in Portland on May 25. With a line around almost the whole block, I could tell that this show really was sold out.

Walking into the venue, it was full of hipster teenagers with long hair, wearing overalls and Goodwill shirts. The concert was scheduled to start at 9 o’clock, but finally at almost 9:15 this guy with an Afro walked out and started mixing electronic music for almost 40 minutes. It’s not that he was bad; it just wasn’t something anyone was expecting. People just talked while this guy was mixing his music by hand on the computer, which I liked, to be honest.

At 10 p.m. Mac finally came out wearing a ripped, oversize Mickie Mouse shirt and old blue pants. His outfits are always on point. His band members were cracking jokes to make the crowd laugh. He started off by playing songs from his album “Salad Days,” a mix of alternative and slacker-rock described by DeMarco as jizz-jazz. The crowd was jumping around and really getting into it when he played “Let Her Go.” His band mate decided that they wanted to play “Yellow,” by Coldplay, which was a hoot.

Toward the end of the show Mac was pretty drunk, off his water bottle full of whiskey. He actually threw his cup of beer into the crowd and the crowd loved it. The funniest part of the whole show was somebody throwing a bra on stage and Mac picked it up and took his shirt off and wore the bra while performing.

Mac also decided to crowd surf, like he always does. The best part about this was that he crowd surfed all the way to the second floor of the venue, with people pulling him up. Then he jumped off the second story into the crowd. Everyone went nuts, including me.

Mac is always one to have an interesting show and I was quite pleased with my purchase of a ticket for this one. I will definitely be going to his next show in Portland!

Advocate Staff