Buzzcut Season: Jack Kays Live

Not many shows these days come with something free, let alone a free haircut. This is just one highlight of many from Jack Kays’ Washed Up, Dried Out Tour at Irving Plaza. 

There’s something to be said for an all general admission show. You can tell that everyone there wants to be there, and is a genuine fan of the music that’s about to be played. Everyone in the crowd was buzzing waiting for Jack Kays, even throughout the opener’s performance. The calm before the storm, if you will. 

Jack Kays and his band walked out and the room erupted, before even a note had been played. They were all donned in personalized white tees, with messages such as “Protect Trans Kids” and “Artists Deserve Healthcare” plastered upon them. The show opened with the twenty eight second interlude Throwaway, which transfers directly into GET A JOB! 

Kays covered almost all of his two disc album DEADBEAT! in its entirety. While the album is guitar driven and angsty, it is also vulnerable and raw, which lends itself to some emotional moments during the show. Before playing My Promise (90 Days), Kays launched into an explanation about the song, telling the story of his friend Sam, who is mentioned in the opening line of Plan B (“Do you still talk to Alex? Do you ever miss Sam?”). Kays revealed that Sam had died of an overdose, and that Sam had inspired Kays to embark on his sobriety journey. He encouraged the crowd to take a moment of silence to honor those they had lost to addiction, or to honor themselves on their own paths of sobriety. 

“You wanna leave this town, I tell you you're my tether/You say that nothing's certain, but I will love you forever.”

Kays also seemed to play upon the heartstrings of the audience when dedicating his song Tether to his wife, Cagla, who was not only present at the show, but is his resident videographer and photographer. The song is about a relationship that may seem imperfect or unbalanced to the outside world, but is everything to the two people in it. The following lyrics, coupled with the fact that he was pointing directly at his wife when singing them, demonstrate perfectly why there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen in the crowd

Shortly thereafter, Kays surprised this crowd with a cover of Hot n Cold by Katy Perry (Pop Goes Punk, eat your heart out). The crowd roared (no Katy Perry pun intended), with people crowd surfing and moshing all the same as they had been for his original songs. Kays followed this with a personal favorite of mine and probably the most well known single from the album, Caffeine. My vocal chords were practically raw by this point from all the scream singing and yelling, but that didn’t stop me from getting out every word. 

Now you might be thinking, “So what about the haircut?” Fret not, for we have arrived at that part of the show recap. Jack Kays searched in the crowd for two people, with the first being a long haired fan named Link. Link was brought up on stage, followed by a girl named Allison, who had been singing her heart out at the barricade just beside me all show. Kays outlined the rules for Allison and Link, who had agreed to play a game in front of the whole audience: Allison, with the buzzer Kays had presented her with, had to finish shaving Link’s head by the time the next song was up, lest he leave with a “fucked up haircut.” Just one “You ready?” and a guitar strum later, Kays had begun a rapid performance of MIDDLE OF THE END (DC VERSION). It felt quick anyways, but maybe that had to do with the time sensitive crew cut happening just beside the drum kit. By the end of the song, Link was hairless, Allison could now call herself a barber, and Kays was shaping up the cut. 

Kays ended with a hearty performance of MORBID MIND, an earlier single which proved to be a well loved deep cut for the fans. Without a doubt, Kays and his band left it all out on the stage. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and the crowd noticed. When his band finally exited the stage, there the audience was buzzing again, excitedly reeling over the performance they had just witnessed. 

From tales of drinking cheap, cold beer to the fear of not making it, Kays shared his story with everyone in that room, and inevitably, the crowd connected. Tears and sweat and cheers filled the room, making a proclamation of life that felt almost defiant of the difficulties we can be faced with.