Brent’s Favorite Live Shows of 2023
A Year of Queer Performances
The curtain opens on me standing in a crowd screaming as Beyoncé struts onto the stage, but more on that later.
In January 2023, Clay and I went on a double date with our friends Andrew and Joe to Elmo’s (Chelsea’s gayest restaurant) and to see Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo. This kicked off the year of only seeing queer live performances. The Trocks are a male dance troupe dancing classical ballet in drag with names like Collete Adai and Holley Dey-Abroad. They are incredible dancers and do full choreography of famous dances while harpooning the dance world and making the audience laugh at the insanity of ballet.
Fast forward to June when Annie visited for the second annual Las Culturistas awards at Lincoln Center. The highlight of the night was Patty Harrison parodying Kylie Minogue’s song Padam Padam. This included singing through the pain while her appendix burst on stage and collapsing while her dancers continued on like pros. I can’t even remember all the jokes because we laughed so hard all night. Ended the evening on our friends’ patio drinking beer and eating pizza. A perfect summer night tbh.
In October, I was lucky enough to see Kim Petras live at the Brooklyn Mirage. This was one of the wildest concerts I’ve ever been to. Kim arrived onstage in an Iron Maiden and sang the entire Feed the Beast album live while “dancing” like a 16 year old in her mom’s heels. The wildest part was the thousands of people chanting to her song “There Will Be Blood” like we were summoning a demon, which we maybe did. She had just surprised released her shelved album Problematique, we were luckily enough to be treated to the live version as the finale and it was incredible.
To celebrate the holidays, Clay and I saw Kiki & Herb O Come Let Us Adore Them at TownHall which was like watching a woman’s mental breakdown happen in 90 minutes while laughing the entire time. Kiki is played by Justin Vivian Bond the downtown cabaret chanteuse. Herb is played by the other caberet chanteuse, Kenny Mellman. Both truly shined on stage as the aging caberet duo trying to find the right way to celebrate the holidays but also process the grief of life. It was a real who’s who of gay New York, all the artsy gays who see everything were there, it felt like an episode of Sex & the City.
Now back to Beyoncé. Truly the greatest show I’ve ever seen. Queen Bey kept us dancing and singing along for what felt like forever but also didn’t last long enough. Listening to Renaissance now I still feel the energy vibrating through me. Screaming the names along during the Break My Soul-The Queens Remix breakdown while Beyoncé says them all was life altering. A stadium of 50,000 people shutting up and there being even a moment of absolute silence when she says “everybody on mute” still gives me goosebumps. And then the finale drag ball where she let her dancers truly SHINE for so long and when Honey Balenciaga danced and melted and dropped and dipped across the stage I think I found nirvana. We left the concert still high on Beyoncé until we got into the car and immediately got in traffic. Then my friend almost shit his pants on the way home which was maybe the perfect way to end the night?
—
Holiday Special: a group of beautiful women on holiday in Fire Island.
