#la ritual

[blahbeau]

my vid of Vessel kissing Adam’s forehead :)

[blacktie-whitenoise]

LA Ritual Fast Facts

I attended the LA ritual on September 11th! Here are my notes on it all and the highlights

*spoilers below the cut*

After Watcher In The Sky, they moved to a second smaller stage to change my life play a hauntingly beautiful rendition of If You Have Ghost with two cellos, a grand piano, and amazing female vocals.

Ghoulettes we’re dressed in heavily ruffled, black mourning gowns with thick, black veils covering their faces (no masks)

Copia gave an incredible little speech about depression, and how sadness can weigh so heavily on you, and even in those moments of brevity when something really good happens, once it’s over, the sadness comes back in. He acknowledged the roller coaster of ups and downs that life can be, but here in this moment, we all have each other, and that’s everything.

After the vocalist finished, Copia got down on one knee in front of her and lovingly kissed her hand.

Almost immediately after, they started playing Dominion and a woman came out with a BLUE AND BLACK SATIN ROBE for Copia, who tied it up, put the hood up, and put on GOLD BOXING GLOVES

The audience cleared a space for him and he ran through like he was ready to fucking FIGHT. Great metaphor for finally taking on the difficulty of playing……..

TWENTIES. LIVE.

Skeleton. Dancers.

Dancing behind, with, and around Copia.

He was like a satanic pop(e) star, getting in formation and moving with them

Also he was back to just his regular black jacket and cravat for this. He didn’t stay in the robe

He did the little “Los Angeles! California! United States of Americaaaa!” That they did on Ceremony and Devotion

At the beginning of the encore, when Papa does his little “after show jacket” bit, where he sometimes slips in a location-specific place he was ready to go to, he said he “had booked a table at Jumbo’s,” as in Jumbo’s Clown Room — an infamous, wild, and weird as hell strip joint in LA. (Honestly, if Papa was ever going to hit up a strip joint though, this would be it)

During Dance Macabre the skeleton dancers came BACK. And they had black pants on with a silver stripe down the leg and little white collars. They were more in the background this time doing their own dance UNTIL

Papa was singing at one side of the stage and they surrounded him. He fell back with an insane amount of grace and they LIFTED HIM UP AND CARRIED HIM. His arms were outstretched and his head was tilted back and he looked like an ethereal prince, so at peace and being lifted up with such style and grace

During Square Hammer, Papa was getting everyone to sing the chorus as loud as they could. Before the last chorus, he quickly ran back stage as he usually does, and came running out yelling “One more time, up the poop chute!” at full volume

He hit a glorious power note to finish off the song.

The No phones rule honestly made everything so much better

Everything is right with the world and I never want to forget anything about last night for a single second.

EDIT: two more details I forgot to mention

LONGER HAIR MASK. Papa’s hair was so flowy and soft looking. Perfection

Before playing Spillways, Papa talked about the Impera tour circuit coming to a close soon and said we’re “coming to the end of an era.” But said it in a way that was acknowledging the close of a tour cycle and had an air of calm and confidence that really made us feel that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. 😌

[georgiapeach30513]

[sighmurderbot]

Thoughts on LA Ritual while I sit in post-concert traffic

1. Microphone was fucking ON. holy SHIT ves sounds even better live and he was hitting runs and notes like nobody's business. That boy sang his fucking heart out tonight and left it all on the stage and oh my god was it incredible

2. I need a Sax Token version of every song in the setlist immediately it was amazing.

3. Stage and light techs matched the energy and put their all into the show, every single song had my jaw DROPPED. Not only did it sound incredible, it looked amazing too!

4. Everyone was so so so nice!! Literally the kindest and most fitted tf up group of people I've ever been around. I went in with a wristful of Kandi and was able to give it all away and left with a wristful of entirely new Kandi!! Thank you to everyone who traded with or gifted me ❤️ and extra shout-out to @tonguetyd who is even lovelier in person!! It was so awesome to meet you!

I'm so tired now I think I cried most of the concert and I'm going to wake up tomorrow with no voice lol

[duckzz]

sooo ghoulettes in mourning gowns uh?

[eldritchenthusiast]

This is what Copias boxing outfit looked like guys trust me

[autumnblooms]

More Victorian Cirrus cause I can’t get this costume out of my mind 🖤