Cindy Lee operates on their own time. “I’d much rather bet on myself and have total control,” Lee once said, “not be emailing with someone 100 times about some shit that I could just figure out by myself anyways.” There is no grand plan for an album cycle rollout, no formatted press release, no strategic live route. Not even an independently booked tour takes place as planned. After releasing 2024’s Diamond Jubilee, Patrick Flegel’s seventh solo album under the moniker that humbly rocked the indie-rock sphere, Lee announced a “last American tour” would take place that spring; in the thick of it, they abruptly canceled the dozen remaining dates for “personal reasons.”
Last night, Cindy Lee stood where they were supposed to be almost exactly a year and a half ago: adjusting their microphone and checking their amp onstage at the Empty Bottle, a rosy hue blooming across their cheeks as the dive bar-turned-venue’s interior warmth melted away the cold Chicago air. It’s not uncommon for headliners to take the stage there after midnight on a Wednesday night, weekday standards be damned. Yet Lee waltzed onstage 10 minutes early, nonchalantly squirmed in their normal attire—gold sequined dress, black beehive wig, white go-go boots drawn up to the knees—and set down a bouquet of red roses wrapped in black tissue paper. Bundled in a cropped, white, furry jacket, Lee looked like they made a break from an old-school dressing room to step outside for a quick smoke.
The sold-out crowd was largely hushed and respectful; some filmed videos from smartphones pressed against their hips; another documented it with an old-school camcorder; a few openly gawked with what appeared to be lust, envy, or both; one person dressed up as Lee from head to toe in what was hopefully their Halloween costume the week prior; but most watched Lee’s every move in silence, entranced, as if methodically studying how one person could be responsible for the best album of last year.
Of course the mood was that of a hundred jittery fans trying to play it cool. Enhancing the celebratory vibes was an additional merch booth for the Empty Bottle’s 33 ⅓ concert series, ringing in the venue’s anniversary, of which Cindy Lee’s show was a part of. Two openers tapped into the alternate styles of Lee to smooth out the transition of the evening. Accessory XL straddled the stage as a nine-piece supergroup spotlighting Chicago’s indie scene. Members of Dehd, Meat Wave, Matchess, Deeper, Ulna, Desert Liminal, and more linked up for an intuitive jam session. In performance, Accessory XL channeled the Velvet Underground reinterpreting Broken Social Scene: extended outro jams, mumbling into pickups, doubling down on hearty melodies.
Afterwards, Canadian downtempo duo Freak Heat Waves pulled a projector screen down from the ceiling and got to work swirling house, psych-rock, dub, and trip-hop into an entrancing, yet slightly somber zone. While images of retinas bursting with color and a dove flapping its wings on an outstretched human hand looped behind them, the two allowed the crowd to grow denser while bobbing along to their rhythms.
The audience hushed as Lee walked onstage, despite the house music continuing to play overhead, and watched as they rearranged three barstools: one for the bundle of roses, one for their DI box, and one for their electric guitar. When the stage lights hit just right on Lee’s black wig, it flashed the same deep blue as a raven’s plumage. Picking up the guitar to strum it in a lackadaisical manner just as often as they returned it, Lee rolled from one song into the next while plugged into a lone Fender amp: “Lucifer Stand,” “Dreams of You,” “Wild One.” A backing track churned out the rest of the music overhead, flitting from shrill, feedback-blasting takes to cozy, lo-fi grain.
Lee played that red Gibson SG every which way but normal: raised in the air like a royal goblet, splayed flat like a fish yet to be gutted, pushed into their armpit like a machine gun flicking out shells by the second, hanging outward towards the crowd like a music instructor teaching kids how to strum an E-minor chord. Perhaps those types of fluid, improvisational melodies could only be born from literally not being strapped in.
Watching Lee circle back to a handful of moves gave the performance an air of mild isolation, as if the Empty Bottle transformed into a bare karaoke bar at 4 p.m. There was the tugging of the dress at the thighs and the sleeves, radiating an air of desired style; the constant chewing of gum, where Lee jutted out their jaw, baseball coach-style; the coy snapping on beat, their hands swaying side to side with retro swagger, that turned flirty when her arms spun back up in a full rotation. During “Lamb of God,” Lee removed the microphone from the stand and sauntered around slowly, twisting the cable in their other hand like they’re debating fastening it into a lasso.
As Lee shifted into a streak of Diamond Jubilee songs, they took the microphone and retreated to the back corner of the stage, pressed up so tightly against the fabric curtains that not even the overhead lights could touch them. After slowly stepping out, Lee twirled into a squat and addressed the crowd for the first time with a simple “Thank you.” As Lee crooned through that dreamy vintage pop—jamming to the bass groove in “Dracula,” drawing the audience to a standstill with the seriousness of their vocal delivery on “Deepest Blue,” widening their dance moves just enough during “If You Hear Me Crying” for the crowd to subconsciously mimic it—the audience was enraptured. Two friends wrapped their arms around each other next to me, swaying in an embrace. A tall, burly man rocked gently side to side, closing his eyes. At one point, the whole room was dancing softly in place.
Lee performed two new songs early on during the set, both of which carried the hazy radio-skipping nostalgia of Diamond Jubilee. For the first, Lee got down on their knees to play electric guitar flat on a stool, like a steel guitar without any of the delicateness. During the second, an eerie noise overtook the backing track, crackling fuzz and burying the vocals until it sounded like overhearing Lee sing in a bathroom stall while walking down the hallway. “Felt so bad I could die,” Lee sang, voice heavy with heartsick pity while their hands clasped the microphone stand. “Don’t tell me it’s over.” As Lee segued between the two songs, so did minute sides of their personality. Musically, Lee took on the air of a woman revealing intimate truths about herself one year at a time, shedding layers as a way of rewarding patience with honesty, no matter how brutal.
As Flegel shapeshifted onstage through performance alone, a passage in Imogen Binnie’s novel Nevada came to mind: “How do you have some kind of emotional catharsis when you know you’re too old for it? The trick, of course, is rejecting the poisonous, normative idea that there is a Too Old For Catharsis... But rejecting normative ideas about age is as hard as rejecting normative ideas about gender.”
Flegel was the forlorn pop singer whose relationship naivety betrayed her, one hand loosely grasping a martini; Flegel was the shredder too ambivalent about his guitar skills to flaunt it with panache before his bros, opting out of easy praise; Flegel was the one-person embodiment of the 1960s girl group performing live on TV and brimming with hope; Flegel was the unflappable elder with an ash-coated rasp that’s seen it all, but knows there’s still more to see. Cindy Lee: Live in Concert was the comedown after an emotional catharsis long ago worked out in private. Without once changing outfits or even overall demeanor, Flegel personality-hopped through music while, without question, being consistently Cindy Lee.
Lee and the crowd seemed to merge into one while singing along to “I Don’t Want to Fall in Love Again,” the set closer. Sharp feedback dulled down so Lee’s voice, weighted with reverb to create a distancing effect, could ring out like a wayward sailor longing for their lighthouse. “Help me,” Lee sang. “Show me who I really am.” Dewey-eyed and softly singing, audience members called out for the same. For those few minutes, they slipped into Lee’s world where the emotional catharsis is eternally evolving.
Sliding the gold chain strap of a small, black purse over their shoulder, Lee said a brief thanks and ducked offstage, shoulders ever slightly slouched, to slip out an exit door. The crowd continued cheering for minutes, even-handed in volume but consistent nonetheless, until Lee reemerged with a miniature curtsey, just barely hiding the biggest grin of the night. The detached synth of “Just for Loving You I Pay the Price” turned swollen in the room as Lee’s angelic vocal harmonies rang out, casting a bittersweet nostalgia over the set.
Lee then briskly introduced themself and the final song: “This was written by a dear friend, Chad VanGaalen, and it’s dedicated to those who left us too soon. I hope you enjoy.” Although Lee’s been covering “Burning Candle” since 2018’s Model Express, the fellow Calgary musician’s song felt freshly pliable and delicate in Lee’s hands. As they shifted its weight between their palms, Lee leaned in close to the microphone—the metal domed grille now red from their lipstick brushing against it all night—and sang with a heart steeped in longing, repeating, “I'll be watching as your smoke leaves in the wind.” Right when the final word left their mouth, Lee picked up the bouquet of roses and handed it to two girls in the front. They threw up a slack peace sign to the crowd, slipped on their fuzzy white jacket, and scurried off stage one last time.