“The Best Part,” “Homiesexual,” and “Who Hurt You?” are some of my favorite songs, all of which are written by my favorite artist, Daniel Caesar. This past Thursday, I was able to see him at Southside Ballroom in Dallas, allowing me to cross a major item off my bucket list.
South Side Ballroom is entirely a pit, so when I first bought tickets back at the beginning of June, I was super excited at the idea that I would possibly get the chance to see my favorite artist only a few feet away. However, what I didn’t realize is that I, being 5’3”, would not see Daniel at all if I did arrive at the concert prior to 2 p.m. (for a show that started at 8 p.m.). However, my classes ran until 3:30 p.m. that day, I had an RA desk hour from 4-5 p.m., AND Dallas was an hour away. This led to me actually getting to the concert around 6:30 p.m., where the line had already wrapped around the entire parking lot and down the street. This left me in the back of the pit, behind rows of people several inches taller than me.
Besides not being able to see, I had a great experience listening to Daniel sing some of his greatest songs. He sang “Cyanide,” a song I consider to be an oldie, and was super stoked to hear the intro to live. He also played “Get You,” a song that made its way back to popularity this past summer over TikTok. Sadly, Daniel didn’t play my favorite off of his latest album, which is a song called “Homiesexual.” During this song, Daniel describes a past friendship(?) that he had that is now gone, and how she now confides in her friend (that is a girl) instead of going to him.
My favorite song to hear him sing was off his most recent album, Superpowers, and is called “Ocho Rios,” the opener to the album. The crowd was quiet until he crooned out, “In a nick of time / that’s when you appear / girl I was lost / ‘til you found me here.” To hear a song that absolutely rocks my core through my AirPods finally sung in person was heaven on earth. If I could go back and relisten to the first minute of that song live again, I would in a heartbeat.
At the end of the day, Daniel Caesar was purely sensational and hearing him live made my week.