The Triton’s Arts and Culture critics Tate McFadden and Finnegan Bly went to UCSD’s Horizon music festival. The festival lasted from March 3-4.
The Diz
Written by Tate McFadden:
The first night of UCSD’s Horizon music festival, hosted at the new Epstein Family Amphitheatre, was opened by The Diz, a student band led by second year Skylar Feick. Playing a dazzling array of classic rock and punk influenced guitar-forward original indie, their four song set was the standout of the night. Colorful collage-like graphics lit their performance with an array of excitement which outshined the other acts.
Performers are always at their most entertaining and compelling when the joyfulness of their art is palpable to the audience. While Horizon’s other artists failed to live up to this, The Diz did an excellent job. Feick and her bandmates had an exciting buzz of energy onstage, playing off each other for shredding solos. There could never be any doubt that they were appreciating every moment up on the amphitheatre stage.
The Diz, who have honed their chops at many on campus performances at venues like The Che and the General Store, were an excellent choice for what the amphitheatre’s first major event was since its opening on October 20th, when Niki, The San Diego Symphony, and Death Cab for Cutie played. Their acoustic song, which is often a test of a live performer’s abilities, proved to be delightful, augmented by the quieter instruments which highlighted Feick’s vocals. The Diz embodied, in large part, what I hoped the whole event would be: joyful, creative, and memorable sounds truer to their creator’s art than to its consumability.
Aidan Bissett
Written by Finn Bly:
Aidan Bissett was up next. An amphitheater shaking bassline signaled his approach as the crowd chanted his name. For a second, it was tense. Prior to this I had not even heard of the guy. Maybe there was reason for excitement.
Suddenly, a projection on the screen: a blurry photo of a man and a woman walking on a beach. Fake cursive was plastered over reading “Aidan Bissett.” It looked like something out of Tumblr’s “Just Girly Things” era, where oversaturated photos were paired with phrases like “taking pictures with flower crowns.” It seemed like a joke. Then Bissett ran in to join the rest of his band, who were already on stage. Sporting a Canadian tuxedo and low-top Doc Martens, Bissett and co. launched into a washed-out mix of offensively-inoffensive pop punk, the sort of filler made for Sirius XM’s Alt. Nation with hooks begging to become a Tik Tok trend. To be fair, the music was not awful. Just utterly forgettable.
Bissett’s performance was also emblematic of a rookie performer. For the first half of the set, he sang too quietly, his backing track almost totally swallowing him. In terms of stage presence, he seemed off-balance, like a natural wallflower suddenly thrust onto a literal amphitheater stage. While nervousness can be its own charm, whenever he spoke to the audience it felt scripted. Early in his set, he whispered out, “I’m gonna grab my guitar if that’s cool,” a line he lacks the swagger to pull off. Worse was when he asked the crowd for “a mosh pit moment” without a hint of irony.
To his credit, he caught his stride towards the end of his set. His vocals sounded better, and the crowd’s energy seemed to loosen him up. Despite signing to Capitol Records before he finished high school, Bissett only has a handful of singles to his name. His set showed that he is an artist still trying to find his footing, both in his music and in his live performance.
Role Model
Written by Finnegan Bly and Tate McFadden:
I had not heard of Role Model—real name Tucker Pillsbury—before Horizon. Naively, I went to his Spotify to see what he was all about. I clicked on 2022’s Rx, his debut album, and was greeted to a host of peak Hot Topic mall-edgy titles, ranging from “die for my bitch” to “if jesus saves, she’s my type.” I went for the bluntly named “masturbation song,” which, yes, is about Role Model thinking about a friend while wanking, which he tries to pass off as a deeply profound pop confessional. I closed Spotify.
Pillsbury’s set was pleasantly more lively and self-aware than his recordings. On the dimly lit stage, his band played far behind him, allowing Pillsbury to do a combination of skipping, tripping, and stomping all around the stage. He was a crowd pleaser, liberally shaking his butt to the mass excitement of his fans at the show. He was an exuberant presence and looked like he was having the time of his life.
Despite his energy, it is obvious that Pillsbury is deriving his persona from the sleazy rockstar stereotype. His attempt rarely lands. Contrast him with The 1975’s frontman, Matty Healy. On their past tour, he ate raw meat on stage, pretended to masturbate, and kissed front row seat fans. Healy’s affair is ridiculous, draped in multiple layers of irony. He is hyper-aware of the power his pop star position gives him, yet, there is something undeniable about the fantasy of kissing your favorite celebrity on stage. Role Model lacks the self-awareness for this schtick to work and ends up coming off like a discount version of Healy.
In the middle of his set, Pillsbury shouted to the crowd, “This one is for my sex workers, I love you!” before starting his song “neverletyougo.” “neverletyougo” is a song in a long line of songs about sex workers being saved by a man they didn’t know they needed, and is so acutely possessive, that just reading the lyrics makes me squirm in discomfort. He sings: “Last man played you like Monopoly (Damn) Tragedy, now you living happily (Man) Trapped with me, no one’s coming after me It’s only us, hope you know you hold me up.” With a chorus of “I could never let you go No, I won’t, no, I won’t,” like a small child with a new toy.
While a different artist might have delivered this song with irony, Pillsbury sang it with enough unaware sincerity, while pretending his mic was his penis (a “dance move” he would repeat throughout the night) that it made me physically uncomfortable.
Pillsbury’s performance was, on the whole, a professional one. Onstage, he crafts a persona: the playful and sleazy rockstar flirting with the crowd and making ironic sex jokes. He was a charismatic frontman, but that self-aware irony in front of the crowd reveals a dissonance between the live performer and the studio artist. There is an apparent cognitive dissonance between his self-serious recorded work and his silly on-stage persona. The two fail to work in tandem on stage, and the whole affair is, for lack of a better word, cringe.
Tate McFadden is the Arts and Culture Editor and Opinion Editor for The Triton
Finnegan Bly is an Assistant Arts and Culture Editor for The Triton