Keshi’s Defiant Coachella Performance
Bouncing back after a challenging year, keshi gave a ferocious performance that jolted life back into his second album Requiem .
Photo: Kenji Chong
When keshi walked on stage at Coachella’s Outdoor Theatre last night and launched into “Amen”, it sounded as if he had come to settle a score. His voice deepened into a growl as he ripped into the opening lines, “Sign of the times/ I don’t pray to God that’s a weakness/ I been playing God in arenas/ I was doing better till I wanted more.”
These lyrics, which also open his second studio album Requiem, only hinted at how turbulent the past eight months have been. “The thing about ‘Amen’ specifically,” keshi told Grammy in the lead up to Requiem's release, “was that I knew that we were going to be doing some really insane venues [for my upcoming tour], and I wanted to walk out to a song that was just gonna go insane with the lights, the band and everything.”
But that didn’t quite happen.
Keshi spent the past few months playing arenas in Asia, but his first North American arena tour was postponed last fall and then scaled down to include theaters. Since then, keshi has worked to hit reset on the album campaign: He released a deluxe edition that includes fan favorite “Kiss Me Right” and gave some stellar performances on the Asia tour.
I find the lyrics of “Amen” to be the most revealing into keshi’s headspace as he promoted Requiem. “I'm not religious, but I think that bargaining with God is… universally human?” He told Grammy in the same interview. “It's like you're bargaining with something greater than yourself, and you sometimes just beg for things, and then other times you're so prideful that you're like, I will bend reality to my will.”
I had to wonder if that statement was going through his head as he attacked “Amen” with a ferocity I’ve never heard from him before. This keshi has a lot to prove; a lot of haters to silence; and a lot of fans who want to feel vindicated that the artist they chose to support years ago is on the right path.
Photo: Kenji Chong
The evening’s performance was heavy on tracks from Requiem. Often this worked to his advantage: the 80s pop track “Soft Spot” sounds tailor made for a festival like Coachella. “Dream”, a ballad that contains some of keshi’s best songwriting, might have seemed too quiet for a festival stage. But it was a testament to keshi’s ability to go there emotionally that made the performance work.
There were also moments that illuminated what didn’t work as well with Requiem. “SAY” was never a strong lead single, and it didn’t belong on this setlist. (I would have swapped it for the fun and bouncy “Kiss Me Right”.) I also wanted to hear more in the introduction for “Texas”, a song that is already thin on the meaning behind keshi’s longing to return to a time before he was a pop star.
“You guys know I’m from Houston, Texas,” he said – but then offered no explanation for the meaning behind the song. This felt like a real missed opportunity for keshi to identify himself to a new audience as a Viet boy from Texas who, against multiple odds, left behind a secure career in nursing to pursue music. Perhaps keshi feels some discomfort talking his shit – but I wanted to hear him articulate why his presence at Coachella is a rare win for Asian Americans like him.
The most cathartic moments in keshi’s set though came at the midway point as he pulled in music from his debut album GABRIEL and previous EPs. I felt a real rush of emotions hearing keshi play a soft buildup to the opening of “LIMBO”, a fan favorite from GABRIEL. The song’s lyrics hold a heavier weight this time around: “I just been going through the motions, back and forth like an ocean/ I am a fraud, I am the shit, hoping that nobody notice”.
“Summer”, my favorite track in keshi’s discography, also sounded rowdier and angstier on the festival stage. Released in 2022 right before GABRIEL, the track represented a bridge between the old, emo keshi and the highly ambitious star he would become. Hearing it looped in between tracks from GABRIEL and Requiem situated the tension keshi currently finds himself in.
The highlight, though, came with “UNDERSTAND”, a song that keshi dedicated to “the love of my life” – his fiance – last weekend. For most of his performance, keshi had sung in a lower register but here, alone with his acoustic guitar, his voice soared and hit the falsetto that he is known for. It was as if keshi had saved all of his highest energy for a love song about a partner who is willing to withstand the best and worst moments with him.
Photo: Kenji Chong
Though the set closed with “2soon”, there was a finality to the second to last song “Euphoria”, a b-side from Requiem. On the surface, the song’s lyrics are about a relationship that gives him a high similar to drugs. But onstage at Coachella, I also read it as a plea to fans and the gods of music.
In the Grammy interview, keshi admitted that the making of Requiem sometimes felt contentious. “Soft Spot”, for example, was not a song he wanted to release. Collaborators didn’t always see eye to eye with him. There was, it felt, a peeling away that needed to be done to make keshi palatable to all audiences. How far was he willing to go for this, keshi wondered?
“I know that what I have is rare and special, and not many people get these opportunities,” he said before asking, “It's like, how do you not sell your soul to the devil in times like this? When you want something so bad, what will you do to achieve it?”
Onstage performing “Euphoria”, his voice reached a growl again as he sang, “I try to walk away/ Because if I stay you’ll be the death of me.” Except it didn’t sound like defeat. Even if keshi has experienced some losses recently, at Coachella he seemed defiant. Not many make it as far as keshi has, especially not Vietnamese American boys from Texas. He’d be damned if he gave up now.
