G Flip Throws the Best Party in Cambridge at a Sweltering, Sold-Out Sinclair
There are shows where the venue says it's sold out, but you’re at the show noticing there’s still a bit of room. Then there was Thursday night at The Sinclair in Cambridge, where G Flip packed the room so tightly that any semblance of personal space went completely away. The most packed I've ever seen it, and that's before accounting for the heat.
It was pushing 90 degrees outside. Inside The Sinclair, it was something closer to 100, the AC clearly broken and seemingly pumping hot air back into a room that didn't need any more of it. The floor was soaked. Multiple fans fainted throughout the night. Between songs, G Flip was handing out water bottles to fans and toweling themselves off, pausing to remark at one point: "My knees are dripping. Knees aren't supposed to drip." And for an artist from Australia to comment on the heat, you know it was serious. It was, by any reasonable measure, a genuinely dangerous amount of heat for a packed concert venue. But it was also one of the best shows of the year.
G Flip announced this run as an intentionally intimate tour, a deliberate step down in venue size from last fall's Dream Ride Tour stop at the considerably larger Roadrunner. The timing makes total sense though. "Bed on Fire" found a new audience through its placement in Off Campus alongside songs from The Beaches and The Aces, giving a cluster of queer artists a mainstream platform that’s translated directly into demand. The Beaches are on tour opening for Louis Tomlinson. The Aces are headlining their own tour out west. And for G Flip, most dates, including The Sinclair, sold out immediately.
The set opened on "Disco Cowgirl," my personal favorite and a good way to show the crowd exactly what kind of night they were in for. If you haven’t seen G Flip live before, you might not understand what an excellent musician they are. G Flip is a natural on stage. Overwhelmingly warm. Relentlessly charming. And incredibly versatile swapping between microphone, guitar, saxophone, and drums song by song. "GAY 4 ME" and "LEZ GO," their single with The Beaches, had everyone in the room screaming the lyrics. "The Worst Person Alive", the second to last song of the night, had a heat-exhausted crowd dancing as if they weren’t on the verge of passing out.
A cover of Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer" brought G back behind the drum kit for the famous bridge, and it’s fit so well in the setlist you could have sworn it was G Flip’s song all along.
The show closed on "Bed on Fire," where G showed off a new tattoo: the words "Off Campus" spelled out with each letter written by a different cast member. Then, acknowledging that the floor was absolutely drenched in a combination of humidity and sweat, they asked the crowd if a crowd surf might be a better option than their usual tradition of jumping on someone's shoulders and dancing through the room for the final chorus. The crowd agreed. It was a fitting end to a night that required everyone in the room to make some adjustments.
Medical emergencies. A broken AC. One hundred degrees of heat. A completely sold-out room that never once stopped dancing. As always, G Flip made it work.
G FLIP SETLIST:
Disco Cowgirl
GAY 4 U
I Don’t Wanna Regret
Drink Too Much
Real Life
Be Your Man
Good Enough
Rough
Lover
In Another Life
LEZ GO!
Cruel Summer (Taylor Swift cover)
The Worst Person Alive
Bed on Fire
