by Jen Grous
Homecoming glee infests campus on September 28th. As the Cornell football team prepares for its paramount game of the season and students gather to flock to fraternities for pre-match festivities, the Cornell Concert Commission (CCC) builds a stage in Barton Hall for their largest event of the semester. Back in July, the club’s advisor and I (CCC’s Selections Director) finalized our decision to appoint Tinashe as this year’s Homecoming headliner. Following months of anxious preparation, Tinashe’s pedestal began coming together. With the help of the professional team from BSI Productions, an upstate New York AV company, students eagerly lugged cases of sound equipment and lighting across the venue. Hours of physical labor later, the troupe of handymen take their first and only break of the day.
After a hurried soundcheck, the doors fling open for a herd of itching attendees to stream inside, away from the unexpected rain. Delirium and anticipation flood the pit in front of the stage where the audience flows into. Before Tinashe is Yaya Bey, a Brooklyn-based performer who reworks jazz motifs into R&B ballads. Yaya marvels fans with mournful trumpet playing atop her howling cries for her late hero on “iloveyoufrankiebeverly.” She prefaces the track with high praise for soul singer Frankie Beverly, who passed away earlier this month after a venerable five-decade career authoring countless “unifying Black anthem[s].” After an angelic anthem of her own, Bey’s band leaves behind their instruments as they exit the stage. A strong start that would only build on itself in the act to follow.
After the opener’s set concludes, the Executive Director of the Cornell Concert Commission takes a transient spotlight to introduce the main attraction. As Tinashe’s name rolls off the announcer’s tongue, innumerable phone cameras find their position in the air. A white LED flash from the video board downstage sends shock waves into the audience. Another flash elicits another shriek. A dissonant distorted chorus swarms the building, lifting the crowd to their tiptoes in hopes of getting the first look at Tinashe. An unfulfilled gasp echoes as her first dancer struts up the side stairs. Eight counts later Tinashe arrives, taking a moment to bask in her glory. Outfitted in a hat, glasses, and a large jacket, she is careful not to give too much of herself too early.
Two songs in, the jacket comes off and she has won the crowd’s attention. Fans throw themselves at the barricade to get a few inches closer, and Tinashe reaches out as if to pull them in. They are sure to keep the back of the audience buzzing too, with dancers waving their arms to engage even the most distant of attendees. Sprinkling in viral hits with cult classics, Tinashe enthralls without missing a beat.
Perhaps the finest portion of the set began with “Story of Us” and continued to the end. Tinashe packed all of her most celebrated tunes at the bottom of the setlist, using the first half as a warmup. After the crowd proved itself worthy enough, Tinashe unleashed her dazzling brilliance.
Though captivating, “Story of Us” brought along embarrassingly literal visuals to accompany her vocals. The videos that played behind Tinashe were more distracting than complementary. A screen recording of a MacBook opened the Notes app and typed out lyrics as she sang them. After the song concluded, Tinashe asked the audience how they were feeling, prompting them to let out an inevitable roar. She had riled them up just to calm them back down by taking a seat in silence, awaiting the next track. The 2016 deep cut “Sunburn” followed, bringing just as literal—but not as egregious—visuals along with it.
Sufficiently intoxicated by Tinashe’s sonic libations, the audience was captivated by an abridged version of the ultra-successful “All My Friends.” The buzzing crowd hollered the lyrics back at her. After prompting everybody to ‘put their hands together,’ her lead vocal cut out and Tinashe reigned over her subjects as they sang contradictory lyrics over the exultant backing tracks: “All my friends are wasted / And I hate this club / Man, I drank too much.” Tinashe demands to be heard as she closes out the track, deviating from the melody in the recorded version to deliver a delicate run on that last chorus.
The ringleader then performs her biggest hit to date, “Nasty,” which has gained fervid online praise since its release in April. She stuns the audience with intimate choreography and they cheer in encouragement. Just when Tinashe seemed to garner the respect of everyone in the building (picking up some new fans along the way), the post-Nasty exodus of attendees sadly proved to me that several people were only going to stay until they got what they wanted. But even the most fervid Tinashe devotee can understand the premature exit, as “Nasty” proved to be the most entrancing portion of the show with evocative lyricism and dazzling grooves.
A towering sovereign of song, Tinashe ruled the night with fierce vibrato and hypnotizing movements. Choreography flowed so effortlessly out of her dancers that it was hard to look away: sublime and elegant. Periodically pointing at the biggest fans in the flock, Tinashe won hearts new and old. A brilliant mixologist in sound, she served a perfect cocktail fizzling with bubbly beats and sweet harmonies. When she asked the crowd to dance, sway, and sing, they did. Somewhere along the way, they found bliss too.
The euphoria that Tinashe had pumped into the room did not leave with her. As fans exited, they repeated the songs they had just heard in an effort to scratch an itch that could only be satisfied by another round.
Cornell Football also won the game: their first Homecoming triumph since 2016. That night, we all walked away victorious.