Dickinson MOB’s annual Fall Concert featuring double headers mxmtoon and Pink Sweat$ occurred on Friday, October 27. This performance also happened during the opening night of the Mermaid Players’ production of “The Crucible,” prompting a less than ideal standing room crowd and causing more music lovers to sit in the stands. Despite being a highly anticipated concert, many students—particularly freshmen—were entirely unaware that a concert with performers of this magnitude was happening on campus to begin with.
The hype for this concert rested on the shoulders of the first headliner, mxmtoon. The 23-year-old singer has over 5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. She originally got her break into the music industry on TikTok with her hit song “prom dress,” which she performed at the concert and encouraged the crowd to sing along with her. During the performance, mxmtoon said it was a strange experience having so many people know her for a song she wrote about her worst year of high school, which she believes she’ll be singing for the rest of her life.
Mxmtoon’s performance was also a purely ukulele concert. Though she is a talented player, she admitted that people who can play the guitar seriously are on another level. Later into her set, she covered “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius, and when she forgot the lyrics, the crowd was there to support her and get her through the song.
Mxmtoon’s concert performance was overall incredible. Intimate concerts like the ones provided by MOB give the artists the opportunity to interact with the crowd on a personal level. However, there is the question of how much of MOB’s budget was spent on an open-mic-night-esque concert with a performer who did several mess-ups of her own songs? The artist herself is very talented and relatable, and the crowd created a very safe and encouraging space which resulted in a lovely performance that I would personally attend again, so this question is not meant to be taken too seriously, just something to consider.
The second headliner, Pink Sweat$ gave a more…questionable performance. The singer with over 8 million monthly Spotify listeners began by coming out with his guitarist and a pair of sunglasses, claiming they would come off when he was comfortable with the crowd. Spoiler: they never came off, but some might say he was overly comfortable with the strangers in the crowd. Pink Sweat$ said that usually, he has a set prepared, but he wanted to give us an extra special, original concert.
Pink Sweat$’s set started out normal. He showcased his incredible vocals with very impressive vocal control. The music was chill and everyone seemed to be vibing. He started with some crowd interaction that was fun and proved, like the singer said, that everyone can sing. At least until the entire concert became crowd interaction and a rant session for the artist.
There were several passionate rants that the singer went on, including one about love stabbing each other, protein shakes, his autoimmune disease, how he manifested not being homeless, and how men are too hard and tough and he wants to be more soft and nurturing like women. He also told the crowd that everyone has a grandma (which is a crazy generalization to make to a group of adults) then proceeded to read texts from his grandma and performed an interesting song about her that he had never done before. The sunglasses and the not-entirely relevant ranting led some audience members to draw certain conclusions about the performer’s state of mind during the performance.
Pink Sweat$ also gave a shoutout to Psychology majors, since they’ll be making a significant amount of money from diagnosing everyone in the crowd. He then essentially gave another shoutout to everyone with divorced parents and deceased loved ones, so thanks Pink Sweat$. He then immediately had the crowd sing along to his song “I Feel Good,” which is not how I was feeling at this point.
Because of all of this crowd interaction, Pink Sweat$ really did not finish more than two of his songs. It has to be said that his guitarist was incredibly talented, not just for his abilities, but for being able to keep up with the singer’s constant changes and demands.
Overall, the Fall Concert was an unforgettable experience. It prompts some questions regarding advertising lesser-known artists, and making sure that freshmen are more informed in the future so they do not miss out on large campus events like this. Both mxmtoon and Pink Sweat$ are very talented artists whose performances created a mostly chill environment for students to unwind after a long week of classes.
