100 gecs

It’s a chilly October night in Denver, Colorado. Already running late to the Ogden theater, rushing through the intersection of East Colfax and North Ogden Street, it seems as if a quarter of those attending this evening’s event coordinated our collective and timely arrival. Wizard costumes, 2000s MySpace Scene inspired ensembles, and everything in between, (that could be found on a niche corner of TikTok), would only answer the media’s question of how to define the artist whose name was lit up in red block letters on the Ogden theater’s marquee. 

We flashed our COVID-19 vaccination cards to the venue’s security guard per AEG’s—an American sporting and entertainment presenting company—October 1 2021 nationwide policy where they only accept vaccination status and no longer accept a negative test 72 hours prior to any event. Scrambling down to the front of the general admission floor section, we squeezed through an audience that can only be compared to sardines tightly packed in an aluminum can. 

Aaron Cartier–a trap, industrial rap and hip hop artist–was the opening act and left the stage thirty minutes prior to the main set. What was left was 1,600 eagerly awaiting fans; sweaty, already exhausted, and mentally preparing themselves for an experience no one could put into words.

Laura Les and Dylan Brady of hyperpop duo 100 gecs entered the dimly lit stage, prompting the ear-splitting screams of the audience that only reflected the nature of their seemingly undefinable music. To label 100 gecs’ music is to call it Hyperpop-a recent genre that has barely hit the mainstream at the creation of the LGBTQ+ community. On stop six of their 10,000 gecs tour, the duo opened with “Hey Big Man,” an unreleased track from their upcoming 2022 album release 10,000 gecs. 

Within seconds, the crowd as a whole was thrown into a mosh pit state, which continued for the next hour and a half in a manner that felt oddly uniform despite the reputation 100 gecs has earned for having disorderly and chaotic music. 

After meeting at a high school party in St. Louis, MO, Les and Brady first worked together by sending Logic Pro X—a popular Digital Audio Software—files back and forth as Les moved away to college in Chicago while Brady stayed in St. Louis. 

After several years, Brady grew tired of producing for the mainstream, and Les became exhausted from the space that she did not enjoy in Chicago. They reunited to create work that was fun, and most importantly, what they wanted to do.

Meeting together once again in their hometown years later, Brady, now holding a production resume including artists such as The Neighbourhood, Charli XCX, and more, the two released their first EP titled 100 gecs on SoundCloud in 2017. The project garnered the attention of fans of nightcore: a sub-genre of music made popular in the late 2000s and recognized for its high pitch vocals and instrumentation. The EP, as described by Les was “proto 1000 gecs”: their first debut album that was released in 2019. 

The audience took short breaks from the high intensity demands of moshing between songs, being refueled once again by the vibration of sub bass that pushed the venue’s speakers past their limits. 

Reaching number five on their setlist for the evening, “Ringtone”, an original track from their debut work 1000 gecs, and better known for its remix version with Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, and Kero Kero Bonito on their remix album 1000 gecs and The Tree of Clues, opened with a simple synthesizer melody and was followed by Les’ wildly autotuned voice. A choice favorite of 100 gecs fans, the heavily distorted sub bass that busted through the doors of the track nearly rattled the speakers that were hanging from above the crowd off their hinges; below, the audience was enraptured in a pandemonium similar to the Beatles’ 1964 arrival in the United States. 

The emotions running through the venue were high. With the shift from music profits relying on CD’s to digital audio downloads, such as iTunes, to streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, music as a whole has been exponentially growing towards being “genreless”. 

Music artists like Billie Eilish have proved that an artist does not need to be discovered by a mainstream label to become an international superstar. It has become the impetus for artists to do as they please without the breath of a label head rushing down their neck to create the next #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit. 

100 gecs took this ideology to an extreme. 

At this point in the set, Les exudes comfort with her audience, jumping and dancing around the stage as if it were a home studio session with Brady and a few close friends. This mutual understanding of respect and acceptance between her, the audience, and music is what has allowed her to be open about her trans identity for the past few years. 

More specifically, 100 gecs has been a place for Les to explore her gender dysphoria with their nightcore-esque pitched up vocal style. 

“It’s the only way that I can record, I can’t listen to my regular voice, usually,” Les said in an interview with Them. “I knew that I liked nightcore vocals. From the first time I tried it, it sounded amazing to me. I was like, ‘I’m never doing anything else.’” 

Hyperpop, a genreless genre—spearheaded by artists and producers such as SOPHIE, Charli XCX, and A.G Cook—was founded and created over the past five years, primarily by people who are trans. Many say that hyperpop is a rejection of what followed the fallout of the music industry when streaming broke the economic profitability of music itself.

It would not be too far to say that the 1,600 members in the audience were among the rejected by society: minorities, LGBTQ+ community, POC/BIPOCs, and people with disabilities. The coordinated moshing in the midst of chaotic music and unity that filled the Ogden Theater during a nearly three hour long event was one of euphoria; to know that you are accepted in this moment. 

Within the chaotic mess that is being a minority in the United States, there is order with community. Within the chaotic music that is 100 gecs, there is order in the sweaty crowd that shows up an hour late wearing a wizard costume to mosh as if their lives depended on it. 

As the duo finished their encore with 800db cloud—db as a reference to decibels, the scale for which sound is measured—the crowd came together one last time to experience the space in which 100 gecs exist. 

The latter half of the song being a mixture of screamo and 2016 SoundCloud hip-hop-esque 808 sub bass noises with distortion cranked to its’ limit, an excerpt from an interview with NME puts into words what best describes the duo:

“People think that we’ve staked our entire career on the fact that we can be ironic really well. I’m like: ‘Nobody can do that!’ Who’s a parody artist who makes music similar to ours? You’d be hard-pressed [to find one]. We’re not joking all the time… sometimes. A little bit. We’re having fun — we’re not fucking being ironic.”