On October 4th, Marina Fleming ‘24 stopped by Downcaf for the first performance of her northeastern tour. Wearing golden cowboy boots and her iconic long, platinum blonde wig, she opened the show with a ballad about hookup culture called “Kiss”. She released “Kiss” last Valentine’s day, with a picture of her magenta lipstick stain as the cover art. The song is about a drunken encounter between a boy and a girl, and the girl comes out of it wanting more than the boy does. It has the sadness, the beauty, and the hope that turns into anger, of unrequited yearning. She debuted the song at a showcase for one of her music classes senior year, and ever since it has been a Bennington cult classic.
A lot of Fleming’s music, unsurprisingly, involves themes that are familiar to the students of Bennington: toxic friendships, betrayal, unrequited love, and partying. She recently released another single from her debut album Groupies in the Age of Consent. “Just Another Night” came out on Spotify in October of this year and tells the story of a girl who goes out and experiences the ups and downs, the highs and lows of Los Angeles nightlife. The lyrics are written in the second person, starting off with the line, “you wanna stay up all night, you wanna feel crazy.” She talks about seeking that reckless thrill she can only find in partying. As an LA native herself, Fleming finds comfort and normalcy in these crazy nights.
When she performed her set at Downcaf, which consisted of mostly songs off the album and a few wildcards thrown in here and there, the crowd was full and dancing, the room lit up by camera flashes. When she forgot one of the lyrics to Lana Del Rey’s “Let the Light In,” (one of her wildcards) she even thrust the microphone into the crowd and got some help from the audience. People in the audience were dancing and singing the lyrics to her long anticipated album, which she previewed during her senior show last spring.
The full album, Groupies in the Age of Consent, has already been released on Bandcamp and will soon be available on Spotify and Apple Music.
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