Elmiene, Jahson Paynter
Theatre of the Living Arts
334 South St.
Philadelphia
May 9, 2026
Do you know what military neck is? Did you know that vertebrae erode? Did you know that you can literally headbang the curvature out of your neck? You probably did, you’re smart. (I learned those specific terms from an interview with none other than Hayley Williams, talking about her neck damage and the P.T. she’s doing explicitly so she can keep headbanging.) I was thinking about this last night during Elmiene’s headlining set at a sold-out, full-capacity concert at the Theatre of the Living Arts on South Street, as I looked around, my neck bobbing, with throngs of necks around me doing the same thing. I’ve been doing this for years and my neck sucks now but when the music’s really good and the groove is deep, it’s practically involuntary, an unconscious somatic response to extremely potent rhythmic stimuli. And Elmiene, with a six-piece backing band in tow (including background vocalists, occasionally dabbling in tambourine and a bedazzled egg shaker) provided that stimuli dependably throughout their nearly 90-minute performance.
It’s been a minute since I’ve been to a sold-out show in the hundreds – not since Ratboys and Florry packed First Unitarian in early March – and while my preferences tend toward the ultra-small and ultra-intimate, the feeling at TLA was undeniable, especially because this was a crowd of real R&B heads. During the between-set changeover, the house blasted songs like Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love," Sade’s “Sweetest Taboo,” Michael Jackson’s “You Rocked My World” and, finally, Frank Ocean’s “Novacane” over the speakers while venue staff passed out waters to keep people hydrated; I looked around at a room full of lip-syncers, full-on-sing-alongers and dancers, hardly anyone impatiently waiting but just digging into the party atmosphere. (It was good that they passed out waters; there were not one, but two fainting incidents that caused brief calamity and stopped the show momentarily, but venue staff, performers and crowd were all on the same page and banding together to keep people safe.) And Elmiene played off that depth of appreciation and knowledge, quizzing us throughout the set on R&B deep cuts (by my count, we got two out of three) and doing surprise, in-the-moment interpolations of classics that I don’t think even his band knew were coming until they were happening. (That’s why they’re pros!)
The whole crowd was singing along throughout the night, whether they were doing Elmiene’s originals – “Lonely People” was a show-stopping highlight, giving his effervescent, radiant background singers Rebecca McCartney and Aaron Wesly a moment to shine – or those unplanned covers, like Lil Wayne’s “Mrs. Officer,” The Roots’ “You Got Me” and D’Angelo’s “Sh*t, Damn, Motherf*cker." The band was casually brilliant, way in the pocket, with gospel chops and heavy rock energy when called for, and when Elmiene took to his seat at the Rhodes for a stage-darkening solo turn, singing with his expressive falsetto on some gorgeous Aaron Neville dynamic-quavering shit, the whole room hung on every note, cheering on every emotional peak, every feat of melodic gymnastics. This was the kind of set where the vibes are so good, the dancing and smiles on the background singers’ faces so automatic and unforced – even the side stage engineer was rocking out and singing along – that you couldn’t help but succumb to the urge to bob your neck, erosion be damned. (As Elmiene’s fellow Brit Charli XCX put it on that new tune of hers: “The nerve damage is real / But it’s the only way to feel.”)
