The half-Filipino American artist kicked off Filipino American History Month with a performance at Santa Ana’s Constellation Room in the Observatory.

Serving as the night’s opener, Deb Never took the stage and was met by a crowd of people who knew her lyrics word-for-word. The WeDidIt-signee performed songs from her most recent House of Wheels EP, along with her outstanding hook on Brockhampton’s standout GINGER track “No Halo”.

Hailing from Naples, Florida, Dominic Fike has found himself touring across the world this year. Fike is still somewhat of a mystery in the eyes of the music world, but not for long.

The half-Filipino American artist kicked off Filipino American History Month with a performance at Santa Ana’s Constellation Room in the Observatory. I was genuinely surprised to see him performing at the 200-300 person capacity Constellation Room, when I’m certain he would have been able to fill the Observatory’s main room stage. That could be a testament to Fike’s growing popularity, with many well-known people taking notice. Harry Styles and Kendall Jenner are just some of the celebrities who have found their way to his shows on this tour. Regardless, I’m glad I had the chance to see him recently at such an intimate show when I know he will probably perform at much larger venues on his next tour run.

Dominic Fike has a truly enigmatic, but charismatic stage presence. Fike plays a song, then talks to the audience, then moves on to the next song. Sometimes the quick interlude involves a story, sometimes he expresses how he’s feeling, and sometimes it’s a joke. It’s a quirky way of performing but really fun and engaging. A majority of his setlist included songs from his Don’t Forget About Me, Demos EP. His most famous song ‘3 Nights’ understandingly received the most crowd energy. The song’s just recently reached number 1 on the Billboards Alternative Songs charts. Similar to Deb Never, who showed her ties to the boyband, Fike performed his crowd-pleasing feature on Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract’s “Peach” all while rapping Kevin’s verses. His genre-blending music is what fans of his seem to love so much. Fike can go from singing to rapping to playing guitar to playing the piano, and so on. He has engaging lyrics and extremely catchy melodies that people at the Constellation Room were able to scream and sing along with no hesitation.

At one point, Fike joked about his limited catalog saying, “I barely have any songs out on streaming” to which one audience member replied, “but they’re all fire!” To fill out his setlist, he slipped in a cover of L.A.’s alt-rock royalty Weezer’s tune “Say It Ain’t So.” 

As the concert ended, chants filled the room requesting Fike to come back for more. He eventually came back, saying he wasn’t going to but had to because of how much love he was being shown. Naturally, I was wondering what song Fike would perform since he had already performed all of his songs that are currently on streaming. In true Fike fashion, he surprised us with a cover of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s 1974 classic rock hit “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” – a curveball from the music performed during the duration of his set. The song was older than the majority of us in the crowd, and Fike was well aware. He jokingly sang, “I don’t remember all the words, but y’all probably are too young to know this song anywaaaayyys!” to replace some forgotten lyrics. The encore was one last reminder that Fike is a true genre-bender artist, an enigma that will continue to keep his fans guessing. As for what we should expect next from Dominic Fike, these lyrics may serve as a foreshadow: “b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen nothing yet!”

We’re gradually getting more Dominic Fike songs and he’s just hinted at another release with Kenny Beats on October 15th, so definitely look out for that. In the meantime, stream his music and catch him on tour.

(Photos by Matt Vinas)