Review: Dodie’s Build a Problem Tour

Image Courtesy of Caroline Morris

By Caroline Morris

As concerts return, Dodie’s Build A Problem tour is the perfect event for all your social and romantic catharsis.

English Indie Pop musician Dodie, short for Dorothy Miranda Clark, performed at The Fillmore Silver Spring on Monday, February 28. Her performance was a stop on her Build a Problem tour, named after her newest album by the same name, which was released May 7, 2021. 

I am not embarrassed to say that I attended this concert alone–I love her music enough to subject myself to standing in line with only a book in my pocket as company. (Note that bouncers did in fact leaf through my pocket-sized copy of The Handmaid’s Tale as part of their security check. Progressive, feminist literature is quite dangerous, after all).

Once I got inside The Fillmore, I caught the second half of the opener, Lizzie McAlpine, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter famous for songs such as “Apple Pie” and “Pancakes for Dinner.” 

After Lizzie finished her set, which showed off her acoustic guitar and intricate vocal skills, the stage was set for the main event: Dodie herself.

All the lights dimmed, and the backing of the first track off her recent album, Air So Sweet, echoed ethereally throughout the venue, accompanied by the gasps and cries of excitement from the audience. 

Dodie at last ran onto stage, embodying a cottage core aesthetic outfit:  an oversized, off-the-shoulder, forest green sweater and flowing patterned pants, with her masses of dark hair in mini pigtails. From her ethereal look to her stage presence, Dodie had the audience wrapped around her finger from start to finish, bouncing between well-executed jokes, peeks into her songwriting process, and reflections on her life philosophies.

“I’m gonna sing about being a slut,” Dodie joked to the audience in her thick Essex accent, before diving into “I Kissed Someone, It Wasn’t You,” a gut wrenching song with slightly discordant harmonies that reflect the song’s message of replacing a lost love with someone not quite right.

After this song, Dodie announced to the audience that this evening, we [the audience] were all going to “go through some feelings,” and in that spirit her next song, “Party Tattoos,”was “an ode to feeling.” This song was actually first featured on the performer’s YouTube channel, where Dodie got her start, in 2018. 

She returned to her most recent album with the next song, “Guiltless,” which is more playful and upbeat despite the heavy lyrics, and provided her more space to interact with her audience. She quipped that, “trauma goes off in Maryland,” and led her audience to sing the overlay that, on the recorded album, she does herself, making the song a collaborative experience.

Dodie quickly transitioned into “Human,” a song from 2019, before switching to “Special Girl” from 2021, jumping around the stage with the exuberance that was young and, well, girlish. She played around with her band, from little choreographed moves with the bassist to a romantic dip and kiss with a female band member. 

A strength of this concert was not just Dodie’s musical talent, but the variety of instruments and skills put on display by the main singer and her accompaniment. Not only did Dodie have a large band behind her, including the staple instruments of guitar, bass, and drums, but she also had a cellist and a violinist. In addition, Dodie herself would play the guitar, ukulele, oboe, piano, and drums. Her connection to all of her songs, from writing to singing to playing the instruments, gave the audience the impression that she truly loves what she does and plays an active part in each step of the musical process.

After this high energy section, Dodie slowed things down with a solo spotlight on her at a piano bench, doing a medley of some of her old, beloved songs, including “Would You Be So Kind” and “Sick of Losing Soulmates.”As she sang these mournful numbers, white confetti snowed down on her from above.

She then moved into one of her most heart-rending songs, “When,” from her recent album. Before officially beginning this piece, she spoke openly with the audience about how, despite writing the song a long time ago, it still resonates with her and that she still writes about a similar theme of “mourning all periods of time.”

The lyrics of “When” really do embody this theme, especially when Dodie sings, “I’m sick of faking diary entries / Got to get it in my head /I’ll never be 16 again/ I’m waiting to live, and waiting to love / Oh, it’ll be over, and I’ll still be asking, ‘When?’”

Dodie then shifted gears, asking the audience, “Are there any queer people in the room?” The response was deafening. As a bisexual woman and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Dodie dedicated this portion of the concert to the queer audience members. As she sang “Rainbow,” a song which dives into the difficulty of being queer, the process of labeling that sexuality, and discovering a positive image of self through the image of the rainbow, a rainbow of lights was projected across the back of the stage. The emotion of the crowd was palpable during this and her next song, “She,” which was for “anyone who likes girls specifically,” as the entire crowd turned on their cell phone lights and waved them through the air.

After this touching portion of the performance, Dodie lightened the overwrought mood with “a song about fuck boys,” entitled “Boys Like You,” a demo from Build A Problem.

One of the highlights of the concert was her next song, “Monster,” from her 2019 album Human. This is easily one of the most high and intense energy songs Dodie has written. She sang, “You break the rules and spikes grow from your skin / Please, let the devil in” as the audience scream-sang, danced, and clapped along in rhythm, the entire experience absolutely electrifying.

She kept up the momentum with her penultimate song, “The Middle,” which she described as a song about having a threesome with two of her exes, followed by a joking, “Anyone else? No? Just me? Okay!”

For her final song of the night, “Hate Myself,” Dodie sprinted off-stage to do a quick-change into a police officer’s costume, a classic look for her. This performance was a phenomenal send-off for her listeners, as it is one of her most popular songs off of her recent album and contains the eponymous line for the title, “Let’s build a problem.”

To say goodbye, Dodie marched around the stage as she sang and saluted to every section of the audience, inspiring cheers of adulation as she ran offstage for the last time, leaving everyone in the audience reeling from an evening of the most extreme highs and lows of emotions, ultimately ending with exhilaration.