I was excited about Madi Diaz’s new album dropping last week, however, I became even more excited when I scored a ticket to her album release event at Rough Trade in Rockefeller Center in New York City before it sold out. The ticket was for a performance and signed CD or vinyl copy of Weird Faith.
This is the song she opened her in-store performance with, as well as her album.
Her performance consisted of six songs, five off the new album and one older song. It was just her, her guitar and around 100 people packed into the small record store. The store had to close for a few hours to accommodate the event and we had to wait in line outside before the event and again before the signing. A thank you to Mother Nature for having a sunny, sixty-degree day in February.
The performance area is where the mic is dead center. The audience stood around the mic and vinyl, where the signing line is here.
Madi sounded great and I thanked her for doing her new song “For Months Now” because it’s one of my favorites on the album. It’s about emotionally preparing to breakup with someone for months, so she said it’s also one of the worst songs on the album. We both laughed about that being what makes it so great and she said that made her feel understood.
Besides “For Months Now”, there’s a lot of emotional turmoil on Weird Faith and Madi really puts herself out there. That’s the thing about a Madi Diaz album, in my gay opinion, you get a range of emotions and she doesn’t hold anything back.
She performed this song after introducing it as her “boss bitch” moment in a dream.
Madi’s rocking folk-ballad sound is a perfect match for the relationship complexities of her lyrics. The push and pull of the needs of a relationship play heavily into her songs. Weird Faith might be the first time Madi explores her relationship with a higher power. “God Person” has her finding god in her own time and place and “Obsessive Thoughts” might have overthinking being her new religion. Mostly she examines and shares dynamics of her personal relationships. “Hurting You” has the classic this-is-going-to-hurt-me-more-than-it’s-going-to-hurt-you vibe, on “Kiss The Wall” she sings about spending fifty years with someone but it’s not a waste of time even when it just ends in death, or another favorite of mine (“KFM”) is about wanting to kill, fuck and marry someone forever. The happy endings aren’t always so happy in a Madi song, but that’s what makes them all the sweeter.
She said she thought this album was a love album and it is, in a sad and tragic way.
