Odie Leigh took the stage on Dec. 4th and proved that TikTok produces some of the best new artists.
The pothole-crippled sidewalks that line the perimeter of TD Music Hall are wet, permeated by the relentless precipitation from the night before. That doesn’t stop a gaggle of underage fans from sitting, bare knees to their chests, curling in on themselves to deter the persistent winds from freezing them from the inside out.
It’s cold, but there is still no snow on the ground. The measly crowd of six who have begun to cue outside the venue can’t bring themselves to care whether or not this signals the end of the world. They’re just thankful they aren’t standing in knee-deep snowbanks waiting for the show to start.
Tucked into an oversized jacket and wrapped in a knit scarf, Odie Leigh, the show’s header and a Louisiana native, wanders into the venue after her second dinner, stopping to say a quick hello to a slowly growing crowd of 15. The energy spikes amongst a miserably chilly group of fans as the doors open, allowing the venue’s equally disgruntled security guard to do something other than complain about the cold. Everybody’s night has just gotten better.
Upon entering, people are quick to realize that the venue, while equipped with a misleading exterior, is not a dingy club with sticky floors and despair-ridden bathrooms. It’s nice. The greeter at the door is wearing a bright blue turtleneck tucked under a well-kept blazer. His shoes are shined. An elevator attendant brings you to the fourth floor, and they don’t stock Red Bull in the tiny fridges under the bar. It smells clean.
This early crowd fits in the elevator on the ride up and fills the space slowly. It takes an hour for the venue to have even met half its capacity, but the opener, an eccentric young musician called King Strang, doesn’t seem to mind. His ragpunk, old-timey, one-man band style mesmerizes everyone in attendance, even if his continuous drug talk sets the well-dressed security guard on edge.
His set, a mixed bag of traditional folk music and 1940s jazz, ends with a cover of Green Day’s “Misery,” complemented by a mid-song interlude of the “Cantina Song” from Star Wars. It’s weird, but the crowd eats it up.
Odie Leigh takes the stage a minute after nine, the venue full and the crowd cheering her name. Fresh off her European tour, Leigh is bare-faced and styled in a black one-shouldered dress that looks a little bit like a jazzy version of the outfit Wilma wears on The Flintstones. With her is a drummer (who also plays the piano) and an upright bassist. The small stage quickly becomes crowded, musicians tripping over long ropes of orange cord and shuffling around oversized amps.
Throughout the night, Leigh nearly plays the entirety of her short discography, cycling through hits such as “Chutes & Ladders,” “Nine Lives” and “Crop Circles.” Halfway through her set, Leigh dismisses her other two band members and opts to play solo. The lights on the stage dim and shroud the singer in shadows. In the darkness, her angular jaw, high cheekbones and flashing eyes become the prominent features of her face. Still, her fingers expertly dance across the neck of an acoustic guitar equipped with lime green strings, the warm tone of her voice filling the whole venue.
During this part of the set that she plays “Nothing New,” one of her very early singles, for the crowd. This performance is one of only a handful of times the song has been played live, marking the night as a momentous occasion for the young and eager crowd.
She finishes the night with the song “Take Back,” encouraging the audience to sing with her. Leigh highlights the concluding stanza, which repeats the lyric, “I’m gonna take back some of my time,” empowering her audience to put themselves first and leave the people who don’t serve them behind.
As Leigh and her band take their bows and leave the stage, the audience wanders to the exit in a haze. People flutter down the stairs, grabbing their coats and spilling onto the wet street into the early December chill. The night might be over, but Leigh’s concluding message of love, hope and kindness continues.
