In 2021, when bands began touring regularly again following the initial surge of COVID-19 in 2020, a friend of mine and I decided to get back into attending concerts. We added a stipulation that we would go to a show for a band the other person liked to enjoy the experience regardless of how the other friend felt about the band. It also stretched across genres. We regularly share songs and bands, like last week when I sent an industrial punk band and a country artist within six hours of each other. All of that work led to a trip to Cleveland on Saturday night to see EDM artist Ninajirachi.
EDM (electronic dance music) is one of the styles of music the two of us had not attended together until the weekend. We have seen our favorite hardcore, punk, and indie bands over the years. There was even a trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan to see Yo-Yo Ma play cello.
None of that prepared me for the Ninajirachi show.
Globe Iron
Before everything about the concert, a moment on the venue. It sets the foundation. A good building enhances shows while the bad ones (Kemba Live! (indoors)) bring them down a bit. Globe Iron, located in the Flats area of Cleveland, opened in 2025 and it is nearly perfect. Lets count the ways.
First, free street parking surrounds the area. My friend and I paid for parking the first time we went and never again. We only found out because their parking lot attendants are on a weird time schedule where they show up a couple minutes before the doors open. Since they cannot control the streets, and there is no parking zone QR code around (yet), it is a dream. Not many conglomerate-owned venues have this perk. This also applies to Jacob’s Pavilion, which is a short walk from Globe Iron.
Then there is the interior. Normally, big business-run venues like to strip away any personality and replace it with concert posters in frames so they cannot be stolen out of the bathroom. Globe Iron is a former ironworks building where iron and boats were once manufactured. Credit to AEG and Jacob’s Entertainment because they kept the music area as close to what it probably looked like as a functioning factory. The walls and vaulted ceilings are aged, with improved technology to make the venue modern.
Amenities-wise, there is a special elevated part of the venue, in the back, where you can pay a premium to be away from the commoners. It has its own bar and bathroom and a seating area about two humans of average height stacked on top of each other off the ground. Lets call it 11 feet off the ground.
Money-wise, I am too cheap to get a ticket in that area, and there is not much of a need, unless you want a seat.
When it comes to the sound, it might have the best system for all the Ohio venues I’ve have visited. The lighting rig also creates some of the best environments, both perks of opening within the last year.
The correctable thing that the venue could do to make it better is leaving a concert. There is one way into, and out of, the general admission area. If you stay near the front of the venue through the headliner’s set, and do not get mauled by somebody begging for a piece of paper with song titles on it, you might as well stand around for 20 minutes and chit chat before you start to try and leave. Open more doors. Please.
The Concert
Ninajirachi is Nina Jo Wilson, an electronic music star from Australia. I first heard about her from an online friend who now lives in Australia. That recommendation came at a time when my interest in electronic music was in its infancy and her 2025 LP “I Love My Computer” separated itself from the pack. Eventually, I would have seen the album because it came with justified critical acclaim, and its place on top lists at the end of the year.
I have gone through the LP numerous times and it has not gotten old yet. It is catchy both lyrically and audibly. Granted, lyrics are not the first thing that grab my attention. The sound needs to grip and it does tightly. Many times since I first listened to it have I put it on in my family’s minivan at high decibels, the way listening to an album like this was originally intended.
Listen to the album with its theme of creating your own music, and the stories that reinforce the art, and it feels like that excitement, or dread, of creating something and sending it out into the world. The globe shrunk a bit to have someone like Ninajirachi standing on a stage in Cleveland, Ohio.
Saturday was the final show for Ninajirachi on the album tour, her first ever. Along with Ninajirachi was techno pop duo 2charm and solo artist Cannelle.
One more small detour before getting into the music, over the years, my friend and I have a growing list of things we look for at concerts. A subset of that is guessing where we fit into the crowd, age-wise. Normally we use a percentage, saying we are in the top 20% of oldest people. Sometimes we are even on the younger range, mainly for more experienced bands.
We brought the entire average age up on Saturday. The two of us do not exactly fit well into the D of EDM and planned on standing near the back to experience it, and there was a lot to experience.
2charm, based in Melbourne, Australia, are two guys who stepped out in Uggs, pants and glitter adjourned tank tops that might have read something if we were close enough to see it. The attire is important because throughout the show it changed. Eventually the shirts were gone, the pants left to reveal shorts and then they added fur trapper hats. Those are the caps that are furry and normally have flaps that go down the ears. Every time I see one, I think of a bad Russian James Bond villain. I hope that helps.
Both 2charm and Cannelle sang and danced, but 2charm had more of a coordinated show since there were two of them. They went from slow motion parallel movements to holding microphones in mature ways. There was even a few sets of pushups, which might be the most impressive feat to do it and then sing afterwards.
Cannelle was up next, and the French dance performer sang while singing her tracks in front of a screen. 2charm had the same screen but Cannelle had more coordination with the screen, playing loops of 10-15 seconds of music videos behind her throughout the set.
Because of Ninajirachi’s setup, the first two acts were held to performing directly in front of the DJ table and it did not look like there was much room for a full stage experience.
A quick note that the doors scheduled to open at eight o’clock, which they did, and the show planned to start at nine o’clock, which it did not. Before 8:30 hit, 2charm was already on stage. This is a great thing, because I anticipated not leaving the venue until around midnight. See above about bringing the age of the crowd up a notch.
❤️ Ninajirachi
— Thomas Costello (@thomascostello.bsky.social) February 7, 2026 at 11:33 PM
Up last was Ninajirachi and unlike the first two acts, she did not sing and I do not care. Ninajirachi created all the music and it is darn good music too, but the artist did mix the songs into each other, moved around stage and jumped in to provide a little commentary from time to time.
Behind the Australian were graphics that matched each song perfectly and a light show that fit the vibe of the night. After the show, my eyes were sore and not in a “I have stared at the horrors of the world on my phone too long,” but a soreness as if my eyeballs were at Planet Fitness lifting weights. It was the best light show for a concert since I saw Beach House in 2022 at the Agora where somebody had to be taken out of the show early on because of all the flashing.
As far as I could see, the youth of Cleveland avoided that fate, but there was jumping, screaming lyrics and even a pit every so often. My good friend, who wears glasses, was in a rough spot with either the lights hitting him double through reflection on his lenses or taking off his glasses and having a headache. The two olds survived.
Dancing and jumping-wise, the most I do are shoulder movements and getting my heel off the ground, respectively. Even so, the set was fantastic and stretched the artist’s discography. Also, a bonus of Ninajirachi not singing is that there was no chance that a live interpretation of songs would be lesser than the recorded edition. I can respect that about the genre.
Wilson went through all the hits from the new album, including fan favorite “Fuck My Computer,” which does not require that much imagination to understand it. Personally, I needed the bass drop from “CSIRAC,” and I got it early in the set.
To end the show, Ninajirachi had a new song which sampled possibly one of my favorite tracks of 2025, Rosalía’s “Berghain.” I cheated and looked at setlist.fm to know when we needed to stand near the back to avoid the logjam of everybody trying to leave. When I saw it listed as a cover, it added a level of excitement that Ninajirachi already built over the hour plus the DJ was on the stage before it.
Will I drive out of town for another EDM show? Maybe, maybe not. Will I see Ninajirachi again if she ever comes near me stateside? Definitely.
