CHICAGO | Ryan Beatty, a Central California native and former YouTube cover-era heartthrob, touched down (or rather, parked) at Thalia Hall in Pilsen, on March 4, an oddly calm, humid and warm evening in the city after traveling from Toronto. Hundreds of people lined the block on Allport Street, anticipating having their heartstrings pulled by Beatty’s third and highly acclaimed studio album Calico, live and in concert.
The album immediately establishes two central themes: California and loneliness in its melancholic opener “Ribbons.” Beatty brings the same soulful and sad, yet eternally grateful vein to the stage that the song elicits – “It’s out of my hands / What can I tell you / I’m not losing it / I’m just having a laugh.” Most likely uncoincidentally, this song is also the show opener. He is doing what he loves after a career start that left him feeling empty and out of his own body. In 2011, Beatty was deemed “The next Justin Bieber” by J-14, which should have made any aspiring popstar at the time absolutely elated, but to Beatty, it was simply not him. In 2016, he came out as gay and decided he would make music that challenged everything the public thought they knew about him.
In 2018, his debut album Boy in Jeans was released, followed by his sophomore album Dreaming of David in early 2020. While he is proud of how each album is its own specific identity, Beatty is most proud of Calico, which he wrote as a well-rounded late-twenty-something living in Los Angeles, reclaiming his childhood life. Born in Clovis, California, where everyone wears cowboy boots and drives trucks—Beatty thought that he could never be like those people as he always felt out of place. This latest project sees Beatty falling into a sort of avant-garde country sound and he even currently drives a truck. He is clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots during every performance and has a fan-favorite lyric “Chewing licorice in your cowboy blues.” He’s managed to go full melancholic, indie cowboy.
I honestly had no idea what demographic to expect in the crowd, given Beatty’s childhood popularity, his time spent with hip-hop boy band BROCKHAMPTON and his current music style. But as 7 PM swiftly approached, I had the pleasure of speaking with two long-time Beatty fans who were first in the general admission line, Lilly and Kevin. Kevin spoke highly of Beatty, noting that he is “[his] favorite vocalist” and that he connects most with how he “conveys such emotion and depth, not only with his sound but also with his lyrics,” especially through Calico, where listeners can “feel everything he has to say.” Lilly first listened to “Powerslide” from Beatty’s first project, and appreciates his “raw talent” that his recent work displays. I found that most fans casually enjoyed his work through BROCKHAMPTON and early projects and stayed because of Calico. I also met with Sophia, a fan since Beatty’s earliest days who sat before the show in seats lining the venue’s general admission floor, observing the buzzing scene. Although she’s drawn to all that Beatty has to offer, it’s Calico that specifically was “the first time [she] actually [got] the visceral feeling of his songs.”
Beatty’s show began promptly, as he has no opener for this tour — it is simply himself, accompanied by his band which includes two guitarists, a pianist, two synth players (one who doubles as a bassist), and a drummer. The show opened with an instrumental cover of Sufjan Stevens’ “Death with Dignity” on piano — which in hindsight may have been an ode to Stevens’ connection to the city of Chicago. Beatty took the crowd through the entirety of Calico, standing only during the emotionally charged ballads “Bright Red,” “Bruises Off The Peach” and “White Teeth” which served as his pseudo-closer. But for the greater part of the show, Beatty sat with his eyes closed, on a stool; as if he were trying to remain at the same level of the sunken pit. It added to the sensitive nature repertoire of his songs, as well as the integrity placed behind their meanings.
He feels these songs wholly and wants his audience to feel the same. Amongst the seated songs was a mashup of “Haircut” and “Powerslide” from his first album that included an untitled song he wrote while on this tour in Boston that he just recently added to the setlist at the show before Chicago. The song notes his thoughts during the tour, by including lyrics like “California cries / while I’m in Massachusetts / thinking of you tonight.” He often says how grateful he is to be able to do what he does, and that even though his eyes are closed, he appreciates the crowd “singing loudly + listening quietly” and “catch[es] glimpses of it all.”
Every arrangement was embellished with vocal runs, a testament to the true vocalist he is. The slide guitar solos and sweeping piano melodies soared over a quietly choral crowd, while the use of brushes by his drummer added to the intimacy of the performance — just loud enough to be heard, but not enough to overpower. My favorite song performed was “Casino” off of Dreaming of David. There is something so wonderful about hearing a song for the first time at a live performance. I took a short video of the song to send to my mother at home (she is in California, which connects me even more to Beatty in a way), and that 36-second clip has replayed in my mind ever since. He closed with Calico’s closing song “Little Faith” for which he also stood and at the end of the song’s 4-minute run, the band stopped playing, leaving the paired vocals of Beatty and his onlookers ringing through Thalia Hall’s beautiful interior. (He did note during the show both the “beautiful crowd” and the “beautiful room”).
When leaving the show, I was greeted by a warm thunderstorm and Ryan Beatty himself, leaving for his next location. Both were like the cherry on top of a perfect show. Never have I felt like the crowd at a show embodied the artist as much as Beatty’s did. No crowd has been so attentive, so kind, so engulfed by what this blossoming artist has to offer, and I am so grateful to have experienced the unusual delicacy that Beatty has brought to both the stage and to the listener. I feel very moved by witnessing this performance, and if you have not done so already, have a listen to Ryan Beatty’s Calico – it is life changing.
All photos taken by Abby Thompson.