Concert Review: Diet Cig, Kings Raleigh

Diet Cig is having quite the year. They released their debut album, Swear I'm Good At This, in April. Pitchfork trashed it with a needlessly nasty review, but the world rightfully rushed to Diet Cig's defense. "Sixteen," one of Swear's standout tracks, landed at #19 on Rolling Stone's 50 Best Songs of 2017, nestled between Taylor Swift and Beck.

Diet Cig's Alex Luciano and Noah Bowman craft a special brand of irresistible sugary poppy punk, music that transports you to a better place. With Luciano's sweet and innocent-sounding delivery, Diet Cig envelops the listener. But it's the heartfelt, emotionally raw lyrics like I'm not being dramatic, I've just fucking had it with the things that you say you think that I should be from "Link In Bio" or Well I’m just a kid, a girl, a runt and I'm starting to get real sick of trying to find my voice surrounded by all boys in "Tummy Ache" that keeps the listener entranced and fills the club with people who feel the same way.

Raleigh's Kings was not filled with people there to see a band on a Friday night, but rather people who needed to see Diet Cig, people wanting to see a kindred spirit on the stage. It was after eleven when Luciano strolled onto the stage dressed in a Jeff Gordon tee. After declaring the club a safe place and encouraging people to come to her if they need to, Luciano ripped into "Sixteen" and the entire place started moving.

Along the way, Luciano screamed, cooed, flirted, protested, laughed, and high-kicked despite tearing her ACL days earlier. Bowman blasted the drums through crowd favorites like "Maid Of The Mist" and "Dinner Date." During "Blob Zombie," opening act Sammi Lanzetta and her drummer jumped on the stage to frantically dance around. The band wrapped up the set with "Harvard" from their Over Easy EP. Your Ivy League girlfriend might not be as loud, but there's no way she's as fun as Alex Luciano and Diet Cig.

SET LIST
Sixteen
Leo
Dinner Date
Sleep Talk
Breathless
Scene Sick
Pool Boyz
Apricots
Maid Of The Mist
Link In Bio
Bath Bomb
Barf Day
Bite Back
Tummy Ache
Blob Zombie
Harvard

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