As I entered a cramped 27 Club on Tuesday to see Nicole Hummel, also known as Zola Jesus, the scene there took me by surprise.
The stage was bare, save a couple speakers and a microphone. The crowd was sparse, consisting mostly of jean jacket-clad millennials and bearded 30-somethings. Hummel, widely noted and critically acclaimed for her operatic vocals and heart-wrenching lyricism, was to perform to a modest audience in a bar-turned-concert hall.
But the second she took to the stage, we were instantly transported to a weird, goth church, and Hummel was at the pulpit.
Wearing a crimson robe that made her look as if she were dripping with blood, Hummel began the show on the floor, bowing down, as intense industrial beats played.
Accompanied only by an electric guitarist, Hummel lifted herself from the ground and pressed her lips against the mic, as the distortion flowing from the speakers hit a high.
Then, the music relaxed just a bit, and she sang “Veka,” a track off her 2017 album Okovi. As the song ended, she transitioned swiftly into “Soak,” another Okovi track.
“Soak in decay, spoil into loam,” she moaned, her lush, contralto voice contrasting the song’s glitchy, syncopated rhythm. “Give what I take, but it never feels enough.”
The centrepiece of the show was certainly Hummel’s performance of “Witness,” another single off Okovi. She preceded the song with a brief introductory speech explaining its meaning.
During her last tour, she said, her uncle had attempted suicide. She said she wrote the song for him, and dedicated her performance to those struggling with depression.
Suddenly, she was awash in deep blue light, and sombre cello rang out. She wailed the song’s tragic lyrics, promising to “be a witness to those deep, deep wounds” and to “keep that knife from you.”
By the song’s second chorus, several audience members were visibly in tears.
Despite the concert’s moody and melodramatic vibe, Hummel broke up the concert with interludes of endearing crowd interaction. Early in the concert, she said that she had wanted to play Ottawa for a long time, and that she was happy to be here.
At the end of the show, she remarked that she “didn’t know there were so many freaks in Ottawa.”
The concert continued with much of the same—Hummel wailing melodrama atop crackling beats and noisy, glitchy guitar. The deeper the show went, the wilder Hummel’s performances became—by the time she was singing the second last song of the set, “Vessel,” she was writhing on the ground.
The set truly reached its climax during the final song of the set—“Exhumed,” the lead single off Okovi.
The song’s iconic intro played, a dramatic rush of strings. During the set, Zola Jesus was winding across the stage as if possessed, her crimson robe trailing her like a shadow.
By the first cathartic chorus, she had the microphone stand raised above her head like a trophy, and was yelling every word into the mic.
As the second chorus began, she leapt from the stage and moved into the crowd, meandering her way through a swarm of fans, and singing opera against the pulsing beat of the track. As the song reached its exuberant crescendo, her performance reached a new level of absurdity as she threw herself to the ground in the audience area, convulsing slightly.
As the music wound down, she pulled herself from the ground, got back on the stage, and rocked back and forth, her jet-black hair shrouding her face.
She left the stage as the music faded away. Suddenly, the audience erupted into applause, demanding an encore.
She obliged, returning to the stage to play “Skin,” a ballad off her 2011 album Conatus. The song felt like a hymn for her eclectic fan base—a perfect ending to her strange liturgy.
Photo by KC Hoard
