People Are Doing Backflips Onstage At Clairo Shows

Indie-pop singer-songwriter Clairo makes elegantly chill music — the type that would not ordinarily incite anyone to jump onstage and do a backflip. She’s currently on tour behind her new album Charm, and she’s doing stuff like covering David Byrne — again, nobody’s idea of prime backflip material. Nevertheless, we’re in a different age of TikTok trend-jumping and main-character syndrome, and two recent Clairo shows have involved audience-member dudes climbing onstage and doing backflips.

Last Thursday, Clairo played in Mesa, Arizona. For reasons not captured in the TikTok video of the event, some guy from the crowd came up onstage, and Clairo was like, “OK, 1, 2, 3, flip!” And he did a backflip. That’s what happened. I don’t know.

On Monday night, Clairo played in Santa Barbara, and something similar happened. A guy in the crowd had a sign that reportedly said, “You make me wanna do a backflip.” (Clairo’s song “Juna” has become a TikTok hit, specifically the part where she sings, “You make me wanna…”) Clairo brought the guy onstage, and she she gave him the mic, he announced that he’s “really good at backflips.” Then he did a backflip.

In related news, Benson Boone is apparently doing flips onstage a lot these days. As someone who goes to hardcore shows: These young people got it all fucked up. If you get the urge to do a backflip at a show, you don’t announce your intentions and then wait for the artist to count you off. You just get up there, flip backwards into the crowd, and maybe kick someone in the head on the way down. Kids today.