Mourning on the big screen: Everybody's Everything.

If you, or someone you know is going through a drug addiction. Please reach out to loved ones and medical professionals. To find your local counselling and treatment service use this link: https://www.talktofrank.com/get-help/find-support-near-you

Help is out there, recovery is possible.

This review is dedicated to Gustav Elijah Åhr.

Then

I don’t remember exactly when I started listening to Lil Peep, All I know is that it was my sister who introduced me to him. She showed me a picture of him first, I think this was maybe around the time he had gotten the infamous CRYBABY tattoo above his eyebrow. My sister burnt a CD with just three peep songs on it: Beamerboy, Lil Jeep and Switch Up. From the first scream in the intro to Beamerboy I was hooked, we played that CD to death in my mum’s car! I remember day trips to funfairs that summer, I remember ice cream, I remember the sea breeze and the neon lights and winding all the windows down and screaming those three songs over and over again. My sister later burnt me the Crybaby mixtape and then Hellboy. I remember sitting on a bench at a bus stop opposite my best friend’s house, I’m not sure whether my sister got them or I did, but I remember being overjoyed because we had gotten tickets to see Lil Peep’s show in London that September! I remember thinking to myself that I will be living by myself by that time, moving to London to start my university degree. My very first concert in my new stomping ground. I followed Peep religiously on Instagram, I learnt his likes, dislikes, his favourite TV shows, bands and who he was dating. I loved watching his Instagram live videos seeing him having fun with his friends in GBC (Gothboiclique) getting a new tattoo or dying his hair a new colour. I also learnt that he wore his heart on his sleeve at all times, he was happy to scream about his heartache, his troubled past, his insecurity and his anxiety disorder. That night was one of the most intense shows of my life. That crowd was R O U G H, in the best way possible. I was moshed out from the barrier (which is were you will usually find me at every show) The crowd felt so powerful I thought that we where going to crash through the floor or start levitating out of that club in Islington. Of course, Peep was on fire that night, his smile was so bright and every. Single. Song. Went OFF that night. Bops on bops on bops. My sister emerges from the audience drenched in her own sweat and everyone else’s, She tells me about her experience, and she can’t stop smiling. We promise each other that the next time he comes back to London that we’ll be the first in line, last out.

Later

I’m in my room in student accommodation. The walls are a dull blue and the windows steam up with condensation on cold November mornings like these. My mattress is scratchy, and I have to pin the curtains together at night because they don’t quite close all the way. I wake up early because I needed to shower before an early 9AM class. I scooch up to the end of my little bed, my phone is charging there. I turn my phone on and I can’t even see my wallpaper under all the messages and missed calls. What the hell happened last night? I ask myself jokingly...

Now

It’s November again, I’m in my final year of university. I’ve moved several times. Grown, cut and dyed my hair. Got jobs, quit jobs and got better jobs. Stayed up all night and watched the sunrise. By this time everyone had found out about our little secret. People walking around with his face on shirts, getting the same tattoos as him and putting his songs onto the charts across the world. Now I’m about to see a documentary about Lil Peeps life in a mainstream chain cinema branch. Life is strange that way.

It’s a really tough watch. Watching this documentary is kinda like watching a really crap tribute band that leaves you wishing you could see the real thing. We start with his blissfully innocent childhood and gloomy teenage years growing up on Long Island, New York. Home videos and disposable camera images of Peep soon give way to Instagram live footage and screen grabs of tweets as we follow this young man from his parents rocky divorce at 14 to when he moves to California to join Schemaposse, a music collective. We watch Schema’s old warehouse shows and watch the crowd pulsate and jump in time. When Schema broke up, we watch Peep move to skid row with a collective called Gothboiclique or GBC, they, at first, seem happy. Young artists crammed into a small place buzzing with inspiration and a burning desire to share. But soon we watch this nest become infected with drugs, jealousy and fake friends. It’s hard watching this back because the signs where all there, Peep wanted his freedom, he wanted out of GBC, but he was committed to helping his ‘friends’ emotionally and even financially at times. We watch him move to London and become embraced by the high fashion world, walking the cat walks of Paris Fashion Week and Milan, giving interviews on the radio and being photographed for music magazines like Kerrang! And Alternative Press. This is honestly weird; I remember seeing these pictures and videos on my phone when they where happening. Then it all comes crashing down so quickly. It’s hard to see pictures of his tour bus wrapped in police tape, its even harder to hear the actual 911 call. To be honest, I’m not sure if they needed to include the 911 tape, myself and other people in the cinema where crying and physically shaking after it played. But if we have to shock people to convince them to not take drugs then, so be it. I hope this can be a wake-up call to those considering taking drugs or are going through addiction problems. It’s a very moving tribute to Lil Peep that does not glamourize or demonise his drug taking. Instead of being angry at him, his friends or whoever you think spiked his pills with fentanyl, this film takes its time celebrating the musician with a brilliant future ahead of him. I hear a lot of comparisons nowadays. People calling him ‘the modern-day Kurt Cobain’ even when he was still alive, he even made a song about it called ‘Cobain’. Bitches call me Cobain/ She can see the pain. I think a more appropriate comparison would be to Amy Winehouse, both immensely talented with infinite possibilities of musical ventures ahead of them. But we watched them spiral into addiction, even poking fun of them at times. We did not help them, we didn’t try. We are all to blame. I thought about Gus this Halloween, the day before his birthday. One of his favourite bands My Chemical Romance decided to announce their reunion, He would have been so ecstatic, he would have loved this. He would have loved all of this.

If you, or someone you know is going through a drug addiction. Please reach out to loved ones and medical professionals. To find your local counselling and treatment service use this link: https://www.talktofrank.com/get-help/find-support-near-you

Help is out there, recovery is possible.