Where The Hell Has Alemeda Been? DC Just Found Out
The Atlantis is still finding its footing as one of DC’s newer concert destinations, but on Friday, February 20 the venue got exactly the kind of performance that builds a room’s reputation. Alemeda‘s “But Where The Hell Should I Go” tour stop at the concert hall was a high-energy showcase of an artist who has outgrown the room she was playing, in the best possible way. Sabrina Song, a Brooklyn-based artist who earned her opening slot through an open submission process, warmed the crowd with enough conviction to suggest the competition was worth entering. Then Alemeda arrived.
Dressed like an 80s indie rock fantasy brought forward in time, holey sheer stockings, a one-piece bodysuit layered with multiple silver and black belts, she opened her mouth and the room finished her sentence for her. The opening lines of “1-800-F**K-YOU” barely made it out before her fans surged in and took over, which set the tone for the entire evening. This was not a crowd that showed up to observe. They came to participate.
Working a small stage alongside Jack on guitar, Addison on bass and Jayvidd on drums, Alemeda used every inch of the space, treating the physical constraints like a creative parameter rather than a limitation. The blue-dominant lighting package suited the material, giving the room a cool atmospheric quality that matched the emotional temperature of her catalog without ever feeling like a default setting. Her mic was dialed in clean, and her rock-edged vocals sat directly on top of the live instrumentation with no daylight between them.
The set moved fast and deliberately. “I Hate Your Face,” “Losing Myself” and “Stupid Little Bitch” drew the biggest crowd responses, each one landing like a song these fans had been waiting to scream out loud in a room together. A fan participation segment, where the audience called out four songs for Alemeda to perform on the spot, was a savvy crowd engagement move that also demonstrated confidence in her own catalog depth. “Happy With You,” delivered with phone lights raised across the venue, offered a moment of genuine vulnerability inside an otherwise high-voltage set. “Beat A B!tch Up” and “Gonna Bleach My Eyebrows” followed in sequence, each one ratcheting the room back up before Alemeda saved her most pointed statement for last.
Closing on “Broken Record,” a new single released the very same day, was a bold programming decision that paid off. The song moved like a manic roller coaster, shifting tempo and texture in ways that kept the band on their toes and the crowd locked in until the final note. Sending an audience home with music they had never heard before, performed live on its release day, and having it hit that hard, says something real about where Alemeda is as a performer right now.
