Words by Erandhi Mendis // Photography by Rick Clifford
If you trawl through Cigarettes After Sex’s instagram profile you will find hundreds of black and white vignettes of intimacy. Six second screengrabs of 1970s film monologue – Jack Nicholson lying in bed with Faye Dunaway – aptly sharing a cigarette. Or on the other end of the spectrum, animated Kiki from Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, silently hanging up the phone.
They are fleeting captures of potent emotion. The band post them sans sound but often with subtitles that read some of the more intimate lines from these films. It is a perfect microcosm of what the band tries to achieve: a glimpse into the most private moment made ubiquitous. In the paradox of modern age – disconnected self in an overconnected world, these moments seem precious.
If you’ve never been to a Cigarettes After Sex show or you’re not familiar with their discography I won’t bury the lede that this is not a show filled with novelty. Vocalist Greg Gonzalez once described the band’s sound as “erotic lullabies” and I don’t entirely disagree. It’s late night music: ambient and hazy – the kind of records that you might mentally soundtrack a particularly good, slow kiss to. Not too much to distract, but just enough to contribute.
Dream pop and shoegaze emerged in the 80s but has really cemented a revival with younger generations discovering The Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and Mazzy Star. This is evident in the crowd demographics, broad with a lean far younger than I expected. Some might argue the resurgence of shoegaze was brought on by that lockdown thing we all did for a few years – isolation and escapism being the perfect crucible for soothing ambient synth.
In any case, it’s often music you listen to with headphones on and genre deep dives aside, it feels near impossible to preserve that level of intimacy in an arena. But during Falling In Love my boyfriend turns and simply looks at me – for a split second I forget anybody else is there. This band doesn’t hold any specific significance for us, but it is a cinematic backdrop nonetheless. It is obvious amongst the sea of smartphones that there are people in the crowd who have fallen in love to these songs. There is a couple in front of us who for 80% of the show are just looking at each other and slow dancing. It’s their own personal dance hall, complete with disco-ball and twinkling lights.
Cigarettes After Sex as an enduring international band is an unlikely success story. If I am being honest, I was surprised at their sold out run of shows – the last time they played a gig in Melbourne it was at the Corner Hotel, a venue just small enough to feel enormous when vocalist Greg Gonzalez whispers “I’ve had a long list of lovers, but none of them matter to me except you.” Such is the power of a few viral TikTok hits, the crowd roars to the opening bars of You’re All I Want – an objectively soft and slow song that stashes lyrics about drugs and sex in plain sight, so gently that you almost don’t notice.
Gonzalez’s famously androgynous voice sounds beautiful on stage, the 42 year old’s breathy and haunting tone is often mistaken for a young female vocalist. My boyfriend points out the comparison to Darren Hayes which I think is far more accurate. Accompanied by Jacob Tomsky on drums and Randall Miller on bass, it is a sparse arrangement. The bass and drums largely sit in exactly the same pocket for most of the setlist, such is the nature of their discography – each song blends into the next.
The natural critique for Cigarettes After Sex is that the sound is overdone. You could call it consistency or playing it safe. How you can make three albums with largely the same sonic palette over and over again to commercial success is nevertheless fascinating – clearly they have found a niche. I’m initially struck by the number of teenagers in the crowd, but upon reflection CAS has all the melodrama and taboo that I probably would have adored as a teenager. The specificity is just blurry enough that you can place yourself in the storyline, all neatly wrapped up in something so effortlessly consumable you can listen to it right before you fall asleep.
The visuals are tumblr era, true to their black and white aesthetic there are burning roses, waterfalls, full moons and ocean sunsets. These pale in comparison to the crowd supplied visuals – phone torches for Dark Vacay and John Wayne supply a perfect ambiance.
Gonzalez is brief on stage, he barely says more than three sentences for the entire show, mostly thank yous and platitudes of love. It does feel genuine though, you can tell the band is grateful to bring their music to such large rooms; a strange byproduct of being indie artists with immense success is probably not knowing how to behave in front of such large crowds.
The heavy hitters are Cry, Apocalypse and Nothing’s Going To Hurt You Baby. But the unlikely heroes of the night are new single Tejano Blue and Dreaming Of You – which is probably the only song with a deviation from their stock standard sound in the bridge; the live version introduces some heavy drums and ripping guitars which deliver a nice respite from any prior monotony.
An enormous disco ball comes down in the penultimate song, I’ve never seen so many phones pop up for a show so stationary. It reminds me that fans want to capture the fleeting moments of these songs the same way the band chronicles online all the film and art that moves them. My boyfriend puts his head on mine, a gaggle of friends in front of us are holding hands and couples on the floor slow dance until the lights come up.
Amongst all the smoke, the phone screens and the expanse of an arena – intimacy perhaps, is not dead.
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