Cindy Lee’s Massey Hall Jubilee
How did you find out about your favourite artist, or better yet, how do you listen to them? If you’re reading this in the music streaming era, I can easily guess it was through playlisting on your music streaming app. It is so easy to discover new music and artists thanks to streaming apps that spoon-feed us recommendations, but where can you find the charm of hunting and gathering your own music discoveries in the internet’s vast and accessible pool of information?
It wasn’t long ago when CRT TVs had to be lugged into our classrooms so that we could huddle around an episode of that science guy (and that’s if the person before us rewinded the tapes), or when we all had to walk to the library’s computer lab to connect to the internet. Nowadays, the internet is everywhere. It is something that we breathe, and streaming has become the mule that carries culture. However, Cindy Lee is one of the very few dark horses, a breath of fresh air that defies today’s culture and brings us back to the lo-fi-wifi days, and then some.
You won’t find Cindy Lee’s music on any streaming platforms or on any social media, but you can find cookie crumbs to her treasure trove of music through their sketchy-looking GeoCities website and YouTube link that brings you straight to their latest album, Diamond Jubilee, with a pay-what-you-can option if you want to have a copy for yourself. Instead of us tapping glass a few times until music comes to us, we have to do the handiwork work to uncover their music, just like how we used to find other artists through the grapevine, procure music through Limewire, or even through the passing of USBs.
Cindy Lee brings back the joy of discovering music, and the end result? A cult fanbase whose intimacy with Cindy Lee’s artistry far exceeds the connection any other artist would have if they were conveniently on streaming. And so Toronto huddled in front of Massey Hall’s stage on a freezing Thursday night in November to experience Cindy Lee in a distorted, reverberated dream in technicolour.
The portal to their world opened way before they performed. The music they played before the opening act, Blue Light, was a mellow, liminal, vaporwave soundtrack so iconic that I could imagine a plain wireframe landscape greeting the neon sunset in the back of my mind. After being taken back to 2019’s soundscape, Blue Light brought us further back to the 90s with their synthy strings, complementing their droning ambient music. It felt like I was in the church of Super Mario 64, being drawn in by the flowering and spiralling lights that drew us further into their world.
When it was Cindy’s turn to take over the stage, there was nothing but a stool for their electric guitar to rest on, and another stool for their amplifier and playback. As they casually walked on the stage to finish setting up, we realized that they were the stage. Pumping in white glossy knee-high heels, a sparkly golden sequins miniskirt covered in a white fur coat, topped off with their iconic silky beehive updo wig, Patrick Flagel glammed up into drag for his intimate performance of Cindy Lee in their Diamond Jubilee. They looked exactly like their cartoon illustration on their album cover. Cindy was the centrepiece on stage, and their eerie vocals complemented the dreamy soundtracks and distorted guitar solos. The atmosphere felt like a hazy dream, as if we were lounging in a cigarette-stained cabin in Canada’s West on a Sunday evening, far far away from the internet’s grasp. They took us back to the 60s with technicolour stage lights, donning the primary patterns of red, green, and blue, which reflected beautifully off their sequin dress. Cindy was the mirror ball reflecting their light onto the audience. The brightest light, however, was Cindy’s guitar solos, which felt like the melting sunset on that Sunday evening. With all of this together, Cindy Lee’s experimental, lo-fi indie rock soundscape was a sublime introspective nightcap.
This magical night wouldn’t have happened if Cindy Lee hadn’t engineered this cultural mystique around their work. Cindy’s music didn’t find us through people-pleasing playlisting, we had to find Cindy’s music through their outdated-looking website and a random YouTube link. The experience that Massey Hall’s audience had was the closest we’ll ever get to gathering on the floors again in a classroom to disconnect from our reality and plug ourselves into the shining light before us. If you want to experience Cindy Lee’s world, now you know that it exists. And even if they’re not on streaming, now you know where to find them!
P.S. I could’ve sworn I saw Cindy Lee in their fur coat and up-do before Blue Light came up. I clocked them from my nosebleeds, just casually roaming the GA floors while the crowd’s backs were facing the stage. From what I saw, I don't think anyone noticed their presence, and my friend and I debated if it was really Cindy, but before you knew it, they disappeared. Oh well :)
My Favourite Cindy Lee Songs: