Page 22 of First Verse

Hearing her unspoken warnings and concerns—the same ones I get from my parents—I offer a disarming smile. I know better than to ask her to keep this from my mom, so I give her something else to tell her.

“Thanks, but this was a one-off. I don’t usually venture out solo like this. And I have solid support from my bandmates.”

“And Kendra, right?” she asks mildly.

My nod comes a second too late. I wince internally as Allison’s gaze sharpens.

“Yep. She’s great. Super supportive.”

It’s true. Sort of.

The door opens and a guy in a Tullamore shirt walks in, halting at the sight of me. His eyes widen and veer to Allison. “Oh, sorry?—”

“It’s fine,” Allison says. “We were just leaving. Have a good break.”

I give the man a nod, avoiding eye contact, and follow Allison out of the room. She leads me farther down the main hallway, around a corner, and through another door. This hallway is dimmed, the distinctive sound of live music apparent from the behind the door at the end. The popping bass makes the walls vibrate.

I can’t hear her voice. But I feel it.

“Head up the stairs and turn left.”

“Thanks,” I say distractedly.

“Good luck, Wilder.”

By the time I turn to ask her what she means, she’s gone.

When I walk through the door, though, and Evangeline’s voice wraps around me like thick silk, dancing with immaculate control atop a wicked beat, I begin to understand.

Then I see her and suddenly know exactly what Allison meant.

But it’s too late for luck.

I’m fucked.

At Side Stage last Friday, Eva Marie and Lily Aoki of Glow walked onstage with little fanfare. When they walked off thirty minutes later, they took my old, jaded heart with them.

Glow is a breath of fresh air. So fresh that for the first time in years, I’m scratching my head trying to apply genre conventions. Are they Electropop? Indie? New or Dark Wave? Post-punk? They’re all of the above and so much more, and they deliver it with the kind of symbiosis and crowd responsiveness I rarely see live anymore. Just who are these young women?

Eva Marie is the daughter of Matt Sullivan of Breaking Giants, and you may also remember her as a former founding member of local Alt-Rock favorites, Night Theory. She met Tacoma native Lily Aoki two years ago in PacNorth’s Interdisciplinary Music Arts program. The rest is history… or rather, the beginning of Glow.

Frontwoman and lead songwriter Eva brings a stunning trifecta of lyrical prowess, electrifying stage presence, and a voice so rich and versatile it’ll make you believe in miracles. If that’s not enough, she’s also a multi-instrumentalist. Over the course of eight songs, she transitioned effortlessly between electric guitar and keyboard and even brought the club to a standstill with a violin solo. And she wasn’t the only talent on stage making this old man gasp.

Lily Aoki is an alchemist of a DJ, her style reminiscent of early trip-hop greats and yet categorically her own. Her complex arrangements are disarmingly direct, with the unmistakable, shiver-inducing instincts of an orchestral conductor on a new music frontier. Paired with Eva Marie? It’s a match made in music heaven.

I know what you’re thinking. If Glow is so great, why haven’t we heard of them? Well, despite support from famous faces in the crowd during their set, the duo has been climbing the ladder of success the hard way and not skipping any rungs. They’ve been on the open mic circuit for over a year, getting comfortable and earning their stripes.

In the opinion of this humble critic, we won’t see them as an opening act much longer. Catching their set was the happiest accident in the last decade of my career.

Take note—Glow is here and they’re about to light up the city.

ALEX ILOKA

CHAPTEREIGHT

evangeline

In the passenger seat of my car, Lily lowers her phone to her lap after reading the article for the five hundredth time since it landed online yesterday. I’m pretty sure she has it memorized at this point.

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