An edited version of this story was published by the Independent Florida Alligator on Feb. 4, 2022.

If you stumble upon the High Dive on any regular night you can expect to encounter a performance familiar to anyone that has seen live music in Gainesville: four dudes with guitars playing some sort of DIY indie psychedelic-inspired pop-rock. 

The last thing you would expect to see is a campy pop performance. Bright, reverb-heavy synths and pink lights filled the venue as 19-year-old Grace Lamerson, in a pink blazer and glittery makeup, delicately sang over punchy hyperpop-infused beats playing her first-ever live show. 

On Jan. 26, Lamerson made her High Dive debut playing as Bambii Lamb alongside producer Zach Rodriguez, guitarist Riley Sechrest and bassist Ben Cannon.

Bambii Lamb greatly differs from other locally sourced acts — a theatrical presence and locally uncommon sound set her apart from the male-dominated DIY rock and punk scenes that populate the local music sphere. 

“We’re pop people, and this is more of an indie, guitar scene,” Rodriguez said. 

The 22-year-old producer can be credited for creating and defining Bambii Lamb’s sound and for including the experimental and hyperpop-esque sounds in the artist’s music.

Both Lamerson and Rodriguez aimed to put on a unique performance, after rehearsing for Bambii Lamb’s debut live show for over a year during the pandemic. 

Taking elements from the theater work she did earlier in life, Lamerson put on a dramatic performance of her songs at the High Dive show, keeping a somehow expressive poker face for most of the act and even throwing herself on the floor during one of the performances. 

“As an adult, I don’t really have a lot of opportunities to perform,” Lamerson said. “So I feel like [playing live] gives me an excuse to perform.”

When curating the live show setlist, Lamerson made it a point to pick energetic, upbeat tracks. 

One of these cuts was “GWIW” from the artist’s newest EP. The dark, glitchy, synth-heavy track marked a night highlight after Lamberson prompted the audience to participate. At the beginning of the song, she asked the audience to jump after the song’s bridge. 

During the song, the singer kept an intentional deadpan, almost-apathetic attitude while she sang about getting what she wants at any cost. The fast-paced track, along with the anticipation for the drop kept the audience excited and energetic. When the bridge came, audience members looked at each other while Lamerson whispered the song’s mantra in German. 

Then, the drop (jump!). The otherwise passive crowd quickly became accelerated, with different audience members starting (or trying to start) mini-moshes among their friends. 

Last month, Bambii Lamb released her sophomore EP “tell me where it hurts”. The record, produced during the pandemic by Rodriguez, features dreamy ethereal and hard-hitting synth-pop reflecting on Lamerson’s life experiences.

Mentioning artists like Billie Eilish, whose influence can be clearly heard in tracks like “GWIW”, Lana del Rey and Melanie Martinez as influences, Lamerson embraces an internet-influenced concept of pop music. During the EP’s production and throughout her musical journey, she recalls looking up “Lana del Rey type beats” on YouTube to use backing tracks inspired by the alternative singer to write her own original songs. 

Bambii Lamb unapologetically embraces a straightforward pop sound, with a variety of influences ranging from hyperpop to 2014 Tumblr. 

“It’s just pop,” Rodriguez said. “We wanna have a pop production, pop sound, pop singer, pop aesthetic.”

Working on the EP over the course of the past COVID-tainted year, Lamerson says that the online influences in her work were heightened. The artist’s aesthetic and sound reflect modern online culture, drawing inspiration from social media trends and online phenomena. 

“For me, if the internet didn’t exist, my aesthetic would not be the same at all,” Lamerson said. 

Bambii Lamb reminisces pastel pink thigh-high socks and tennis skirts, the over romanticization of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1995 novel “Lolita” and Lana del Rey’s 2012 track named after the book. 

Lamerson’s work portrays a version of femininity that nearly touches on social commentary. In her newest music video for “innocent”, she plays a character based on her personal experiences being seen as a child. Even though people might take her femininity and child-like aesthetic as indications of an assumed innocence, she says she still thinks she’s capable of doing bad things. In the music video, this is depicted with the fairytale-like murder of a man by her character. 

For Lamerson, her presentation of femininity doesn’t come from a place of subversion or satire, but one of simple self-expression. 

“There was a time where I rejected femininity,” Lamerson said. “And then I was like ‘this is so stupid’ because I realized I just love the color pink.”

While generally well-received by her target audience, which she defines as “14- to 24-year-old women and femme-presenting artsy people,” her art-pop sound and her hyper-feminine performance have attracted criticism. 

Lamerson often gets hate comments on promoted Facebook posts. Mostly, she says, coming from middle-aged white men. 

“Some people are very confused by it,” Lamerson said. “It’s just not for some people.”

But at the show, concertgoers shouted in support, while others could be heard commenting on how the intro to the track “after this” resembled Super Mario soundtracks in a good way. Open and embracing the artist’s performance, the audience simply understood. 

Once the show ended, audience members flew to the merch table in typical indie show fashion. Selling a variety of Bambii Lamb stickers and promoting the online merch store were Lamerson’s parents. Her mother, Robin Lamerson, helps her behind the scenes with marketing. For her, the show at the High Dive was a showcase of how much her daughter had grown as an artist since she started composing at 14-years-old. 

Bambii Lamb announced there would be three upcoming shows on her Instagram stories Friday.