Show Review: Melanie Martinez Portals Tour in Los Angeles
by Sean Sara
After being a fan of someone's music for nine years, one thinks they would know what to expect from an artist. However, nothing could have prepared me for a show like Melanie Martinez's Los Angeles date of the Portals Tour. If you don't know much about Melanie Martinez, you might know the singer from her 2015 debut album Cry Baby. Martinez has said in interviews that Cry Baby is about a fantastical version of her younger self before starting her education. Her unique approach to music and alternative style (including her iconic split dye hair) skyrocketed this album to great heights with help from her popular songs “Dollhouse,” “Pity Party,” and “Carousel.” In 2019, she released her album K-12, where her previous album character delved further into her education. With themes of self love, the pressures of society, reincarnation, and corrupted authority figures, Martinez has covered it all in K-12, and fans couldn't get enough. The album charted on Billboard 200 for 18 weeks and was certified gold shortly after. We now arrive at her most recent album, Portals, which is meant to signify the changes from one chapter of life to the next. Martinez herself said in an interview, “Portals screams death is life is death is life is death is life. A continuous loop. A circle.”
Portals had a huge welcoming party from her fans that helped the album chart at #2 in its first week of release. After a successful first release week, fans everywhere were ecstatic when the Portals Tour details were announced. The amazing backdrops, her backup dancers, the prosthetics, and garments she wore all told the Portals story perfectly, and it brought the album together seamlessly. Being released only two months prior to the tour, fans didn't have much time to learn the words. This, however, was no challenge for Martinez’s fans. A sold out Youtube Theater in Los Angeles was filled to the brim with six thousand passionate fans. As an attendee, I realized that Martinez relies on the crowd the same way the crowd relies on her; it was such a beautiful moment seeing Martinez point the microphone at the crowd during “Nymphology” and watching her reaction to the words being sung back to her. You could easily tell that, to Martinez, nothing meant more to her than experiences like this. Seeing this show only has fans (myself included) more excited for Martinez's future and what is next for the singer.
