What's there really to say about a Mac DeMarco performance? He's stuck things up his ass, made out with his bandmates and/or audience members, played a 30-minute long encore of just one song, summoned a demon spirit's schleppy, fratty ex-boyfriend from another realm using a complex tonic that consisted of cheap beer and male tears (just kidding on that one).

Depending on your mood, it's charming. And when I mean mood, I mean if you're three beers deep on an empty stomach. "Freaking Out the Neighborhood" is great live. But a drunk mind is prone to wander as evidenced by both the crowd and the band itself.

The third of DeMarco's three nights at the Showbox Sodo, the crowd was noticeably small. It was, however, a Monday night. I half expected a jam-packed venue with gangly, riled up teens in saggy hats who frequent the Mac DeMarco subreddit. Instead, the crowd was mostly older, tired people who stood respectable distances from each other.

The so-called "jizz jazzer" is fresh off the release of his fourth album, Here Comes the Cowboy, which came out last week. Reviews haven't been too kind. My hot take is that the suuuuuuuuper slow jams are positively catatonic—so unhurried that it made me want to jump out of my skin. I hoped for something different at this live performance.

Australian singer Holiday Sidewinder opened for DeMarco. She came out in a cowboy-adjacent leotard ("I’m dressed as a cowgirl 'cause every good cowboy needs a cowgirl around") and seemed frazzled, telling us breathlessly in between songs that she was asked if she could be in Seattle in 24 hours from halfway across the world ("Anything for Mac daddy"). She had no backing band and sang along to tracks that still had her recorded voice on them. Her music was intensely poppy and glam, twirling around stage to songs like "Baby Oil" and just kind of left abruptly, seemingly exhausted. It was a weird dream of a performance.

Mac opened up with all the hits, coming out to "Duel of the Fates" from the Star Wars prequel trilogy and then diving right into "Salad Days." After, he commented that he ate at revered International District restaurant Dough Zone. He jammed through "The Stars Keep on Calling My Name," "On a Level," and "Nobody."

By that time the crowd was really grooving and feeling the music. My childhood growing up in a mostly white neighborhood called me and asked if I was having a good time—I was. Someone next to me screamed into her friend's ear: “No wonder Seattle loves him he’s so fucking SEATTLE." I looked over at DeMarco who had transitioned into a small pink cowboy hat, talking about horse-fucking with his band. Ok, yes, very Seattle.

By 12:30, Mac had been playing for nearly 2.5 hours and showed absolutely no signs of stopping. What was happening seemed kind of ignorable—Mac had brought parts of the crowd to hang out with him onstage, some random dude was playing the drums, the band was taking giant swings from an elaborate looking bottle of alcohol. They were covering "Dream Weaver." Mac asked, "Will the real band please come to the stage?" trying to sort out the mess he'd made. People began to stream out in droves, the boys playing them out to the sidewalk.

I think part of the attraction to Mac is his perceived freedom. He's so unbothered, saying he doesn't pay attention to modern music much, so much so he didn't realize that the titles of his album and lead single were very similar to one of his contemporaries. He's just a chill dude, making chill music, man. He'll turn a concert into a karaoke session 'cause why not?

As a listener and concertgoer, it's tempting to take part in the fantasy or, in my case, weird nostalgia. Mac reminds me a lot of dudes I knew from high school who tried to personify weird dads and played in ironically earnest bands. I later learned they were all doing different flavors of off-key Jonathan Richman drag. But this aimless, nonchalant, unserious frattiness gets exhausting to watch. To perform, too, I suppose.

*5/16/19: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Mac came out to "Duel of the Fates" from Star Wars, not some random bit of music from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.