Oliver Tree Played an Entirely Unhinged Tour Stop in Dallas

Sunday night at South Side Ballroom was set to be a silly one as the flood of fans, some dressed as headliner Oliver Tree himself, spilled past the gravel parking lot waiting to get into the venue. The only other time you’d catch as many ’80s-inspired ski jackets/windbreakers in one place would be at one of those cheesy themed pub crawls.

The venue greeted concertgoers with late ’90s and mid-2000s bangers from the Spice Girls to Weezer. Opening up the night was Jasiah, a rapper from Dayton, Ohio. He immediately got the crowd hyped up, ordering everyone to “Fucking jump, and don’t stop!”

He scattered some comedy bits here and there, including a wild call-and-response for the crowd to help complete his favorite foods: “My favorite sandwich is peanut butter and … (‘jelly’), my favorite pasta is macaroni and … (‘cheese’), my favorite kind of potato chip is salt and viiii …  (inadvertent racial slur).”

Heaps of attendees did not realize the trap they were falling into, but this didn’t slow down the show. Jasiah’s command of the crowd was sick, and next time he rolls through Dallas, no doubt he’ll be headlining a tour.

FIDLAR wasted no time driving right into their set. The Los Angeles skate-punk band played an intense and fast show, ripping through their three anthemic albums, including crowd favorites off their fourth and latest, Unplug, released this year.

During “Cheap Beer” they told the crowd: “We want to see you mosh.” And the crowd took this request so seriously that the band had to stop mid-song because of some ruckus that ensued in the pit. The band called for security to check out the commotion, but it turned out that someone had danced so hard they had lost their shoe. A lone hand stuck out among the crowd holding a shoe, which immediately made it back to its rightful owner.

FIDLAR’s lead singer, Zac Carper, briefly commended the audience for watching out for each other, before going right back into their song and shouting, “We drink cheap beer, so what? Fuck you,” which the entire venue yelled in unison. The in-between banter was kept to an absolute minimum, as the band let their instruments and the crowd do the talking. They did take a brief pause to let everyone know that Dallas was wilder than Austin, and thanked their fans, who responded with a loud chant of “FIDLAR! FIDLAR! FIDLAR!”

Before the main event, there was yet another opener, a secret act: SuperComputer, a DJ duo who donned grade-school computer lab headphones on giant computer monitor heads that displayed old Windows graphics and virus threats. Their electronic set turned the entire space into a cyber-rave.

The crowd jumped and danced in such a frenzy that one crowd member became overheated like an old CPU running one too many programs and had to be carried out.

Californian Oliver Tree, known in part for his comedy videos, took the stage by sitting on a pink couch, his back to the crowd, telling the packed venue that one of the tour’s semis couldn’t make it and that the show was canceled.

“And you’re not getting your money back,” he yelled. “We’re keeping it, so if you look to your left, there’s the exit. Now everybody get the fuck out! Get the fuck out, the show is canceled!”

He then pulled out a comically large remote control and told the audience that since no one was listening or moving, he was going to watch his favorite TV shows. And so the show was off to a hilariously unhinged start as two stagehands rotated the couch, and Tree played conductor to his backing band (who were all dressed identically to Tree, down to the bowl-cut wigs and mustaches).

The set comprised his entire discography, leaving no hit untouched. Between songs, there were bits and skits projected on the venue’s giant backdrop screen. It was reminiscent of those wacky late-night infomercials, but all characters were either played by Tree or had his face digitally superimposed on different people playing the parts.

Tree also made the point that Dallas had a better crowd than Austin and Houston, but during “Cowboy Tears,” he repeatedly yelled, “Love you, Austin! Keep jumping, Houston,” intentionally name-checking the wrong city.

This threw off some in the crowd. You could hear the scattered, “Uh, we’re Dallas” throughout the back of the crowd, which made their way to Tree, who replied, “Just kidding. I love you, Dallas. You’re way better than those other two cities; Houston and Austin suck!”

It was a night filled with wild antics. Between the oversized TV remote and NES controller, multiple outfit changes, giant acoustic guitars and Tree claiming that Dallas was his hometown, the bits and jokes kept getting weirder and wilder, and didn’t stop until the last song.