Gec Watch: 100 Gecs to Stop at Houston on Tour

100 gecs recently kicked off their 10,000 Gecs Tour on October 8th, increasing the amount of “gecs” exponentially, and they’re stopping in Houston on November 10th. Since the release of their debut album 1000 gecs, the band has been gaining the attention of fans underground and mainstream alike with their advancement of the relatively new “hyperpop” trend.

Dates on the 10,000 Gecs Tour

The band consists of Dylan Brady and Laura Les. The two had already collaborated in the past on songs like “ditch a body in the laundry” by Les, though it would be as an official duo that they would come into a style completely their own — and achieve cult music success at the same time. Met with mass confusion, 1000 gecs introduced much of the music world to the peculiar duo. The album contains their biggest song to date, “money machine” — whose opening immediately calls the listener a “piss baby” and has managed to have even its most outspoken detractors coming back to get their fix of pop chaos, with one YouTube comment at two thousand likes stating “I can’t let anyone find out that I actually like this song.”

Photo of the band from September 6th on their Instagram

From this and other songs on the album, it’s unclear if or when the duo is being tongue-in-cheek or entirely serious. The group is not shy to borrow from communities and movements that were seen as “cringe” (as the kids say) up until recently (such as scene, pop punk, and ska), while also utilizing many equally polarizing trends in their music (like heavy autotune, deep 808’s, and nightcore). To an onlooker, it might even appear as if 100 gecs were the result of a focus group in which a general audience was asked what they did not want to hear in a band’s music, only to have these qualities shape said music. Their use of absurdist humor and levels of irony that are impossible to completely understand, without a decade of being on the internet, result in a style that is sure to have outsiders entirely baffled, such as with this shirt that was sold on their official merch store.

To add to their mystique, the band itself keeps up a very facetious persona, online and otherwise. Depending on which interview of theirs you watch, you will get completely varying origin stories for their band name: one stating that Les accidentally got 100 geckos mailed to her and another stating that Les found the phrase spray-painted to the side of her dorm building, and so on.

However, this combination of jokey attitude and rejection of standard pop music conventions have paid off for the band in a big way. Not long after their introduction into underground vernacular, they would find themselves on tour with BROCKHAMPTON and with a remix album featuring everyone from Charli XCX and Rico Nasty to Fall Out Boy.

Regardless of your opinion on the band, their impact on music in their few years on the scene is undeniable, sparking many imitators but none that have been able to capture their essence completely. It is clear that 100 gecs is one of the bands currently shaping the future of pop music. To witness history in the making, check them out on tour in a city near you.

100 gecs. Photo credit: Mikey Joyce.