Friday, March 27, 2026 at 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Gold—Diggers, Los Angeles
Sid The Cat Presents Al Olender with Ahna Ell 3/27/2026 at Gold-Diggers 21+ The weight of change taunts our periphery… …smearing lipstick across a heated cheek before those lips have had a chance to say how they felt, really. A blue-black polaroid, held in a pocket, barely makes shapes of its faces before someone takes another photo. Songwriter Al Olender tries to grasp these brief moments in slow-motion, to live in them for just a little while, but finds that the tighter she holds on, the more these frames fall into a soupy blur. Change is our only constant, but what if we wanted to steep in the now? What if we could stay right here? Olender captures the anxieties of an ever-moving world on her second full-length album The Worrier, where all are invited to mourn the fleeting nature of our experiences and yell into the ether. She has never shied away from the goopy mess that comes with laying your heart on the line. On her 2022 debut album, Easy Crier, Olender stared the truth right in the face and got to know the all-encompassing shadow of grief. She learned to stop lying and to really live in deep sincerity, no matter how shaky or silly it could feel. By stepping into this boundless reality, Olender connected with herself and those closest to her more than she ever had. Now, after a few years on the road touring solo in her beloved Mazda, opening for the likes of Bonny Light Horseman, Langhorne Slim, Rayland Baxter, John Moreland, Shovels & Rope, Deer Tick and Lucius, she finds herself aching for those connections to stay still, to be just the same as when she left them. To chase your dream, to make art and see the world, often means loosening your grip on the very things that allowed you to do that in the first place. For Olender, that’s a tough one to swallow.