Photos and review by Jennie Book
@jenniebookphotography

Remi Wolf brought her Big Ideas Tour to the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford in Palo Alto, California on October 19, 2024, a hometown show for her – “I went to high school three blocks away from here!” and the last stop on its US leg.

Everything about Remi Wolf and her band is bright and colorful, including her dancey funky music, her clothes, and her stage lighting. Her voice was great live, and her band was fun and talented, and she was super chatty with the crowd and a great storyteller in between songs.

Some information gleaned during interstices: the album Big Ideas was written after two and a half years on the road and reflected what her life was then: drugs, sexcapades, and food. An example was the song “Alone in Miami” – when she got off the plane some crypto dudes started talking to her, she ate a Cubano, kissed a girl, and did a bunch of cocaine. “I said to myself, that’s a pretty good song right there.”

Mid-set she did a cover of a cover of “Life Is A Highway” (Wolf covering Rascal Flatts covering Tom Cochrane) that the audience was into, but it seemed to be kind of a pedestrian choice given her funkiness, but she does it on tour to celebrate her favorite movie (“Cars”), and the crowd knew the words and happily sang along.

After “Highway” she told the crowd that she wanted to improvise and that they should call out some words. Yelling from the crowd yielded three to build a song on: “Bonky,” “Scissor,” and “Mommy.” So she crafted it on the fly, and it was funky and a groove, and included the line “Bonky scissor mommy don’t fuck with me!” which got the fans cheering, and also my notes say “Nonunion mommy bitch if you fuck with me I’m gonna snip snip snip,” but it was dark and the nonunion part doesn’t seem like it fits, but given the spontaneous assignment maybe?

The fun 17-song set included hits like “Cherries & Cream,” “Soup,” and “Photo ID,” and the band, made up of Conor Malloy on drums, Matt Horton on guitar, Alex Pachino on guitar, Maddie Jay on bass, Anna Bettendorf on keys, and Zev Shearn-Nance on percussion, filled Frost with full throttle sound that sounded great in the photo pit and at the back of the ampitheater both.

In between favorites “Motorcycle” and “Toro,” Wolf talked about the two sides of herself, one side that wants to stay at home and have a baby and pick oranges in the backyard, and the other side that wants to rage and smoke cigarettes and be on the road and get into a hotel and hook up, and at 28 years old “that part of me is fucking winning!”

Her life material makes for great songs and great moments, and one of them was during “Toro” in the open air of Frost where the whole crowd sang together, united, one nation under a groove.

For the latest info, including upcoming Europe tour info, check out www.remiwolf.com.