Last night, I went to the Backseat Lovers concert in Oakland, California with a few friends. I was at UC Berkeley for the weekend visiting, and my friend and I had purchased the tickets many months prior. When we got the tickets in November, I only knew a few Backseat Lovers songs, but I figured I’d memorize the discography by April. I in fact did not- I knew about four songs still, but I loved those songs and I love live music, so I was thrilled. The day of the concert, I asked my friend if she knew if there was an opener. She wasn’t sure, so we did our research and found out that the opener for the night was named Renata. We shared headphones and listened to a couple of songs, and we both loved her voice and her sound immediately.
We arrived before the doors opened since we had GA tickets and wanted to be close to stage, and we ended up with a pretty amazing view. It is a fairly small venue that I had been to once prior to see one of my favorite bands, Caamp, last October. I love small venues, they feel so much more personal and intimate and it feels like the artists are singing just for you. The pit was full of people, but we had a little bit of space during the opener. She came on with three bandmates and began to sing, and her voice was even more beautiful in person. Her stage presence was amazing- you could tell how genuine of a person she is and her vulnerability with the audience made the entire performance feel so much more familiar.
Renata Zeiguer is a singer-songwriter artist based in Brooklyn, who began playing and writing music from a young age. She began playing violin and piano when she was six years old, and frequently played the keys after school, drawing inspiration from composers such as Prokofiev and Debussy, before moving into songs she could sing. These songs were those of The Beatles, and early 20th century American jazz, as well as Brazilian tropicália. She is the daughter of Argentinian and Philippine immigrants, who she dedicated a song to during the concert. Renata’s debut album, titled Old Ghost, is about the cycle of finding and losing yourself, and has a looming theme of struggling with mental illness but is still relatively upbeat in melody, and more comforting than anything else. Writing music became a way for her to process psychologically difficult ways in a more creative and playful way. In an interview with Marcos Hassan, Renata said,
“The things that I process as an individual, I think are universal. We all have parents & childhoods, & we’ll grow out of our childhoods, & we’ll look back on things. So it’s personal, but it’s also just themes of being human.”
Renata’s new album is titled Picnic in the Dark. It is her second full length album, and has aspects of fantasy and magical realism, as well as telling intensely personal stories of her own life and relationships with herself, as well as the people who surround her. Her website describes the album as “a culmination of a lifetime of reckoning with her past and her unwavering resolution to transcend inherited patterns and cycles that have held her back.” The album is unsettling, but in a comforting sort of way. She has a way of writing songs that have this looming sense of mystery, while maintaining this ethereal, dream-like feel. The way I interpreted the album upon listening a couple more times post-concert, Renata confronts her past self and argues with previously held notions in order to find a sense of inner peace. In the opening track, Sunset Boulevard, this sort of ominous and unsure tone begins when Renata sings “The mindful touch is moving me, it’s moving me, it’s changing rearranging all the pathways in the sand…oh but something so familiar isn’t always right…”.
I am immensely grateful that I got the chance to see Renata perform live, and if/when she goes on tour, I will try my absolute best to be there. She and her music have made a lasting impact on me, and I have not stopped listening since last night. And thank you to the Backseat Lovers for introducing me to her, and for putting on a spectacular performance. This was a transformative and beautiful experience, and I am returning to Oregon with some new favorite tunes. I didn’t even know Renata’s name before the weekend, and I think I’ve memorized at least 1/5 of her discography by now. If you aren’t familiar with her music yet, you should definitely check it out.
Thank you for reading! I sincerely hope you find beauty everywhere throughout your week, and I can’t wait for our next chat.
Cheers,
B