Mac DeMarco’s omnipresence in the indie-pop music scene for the last 13 years has made his aesthetics easily detectable. Flanks of mulleted, Carhartt-clad fans filtered into the Corn Exchange for the Cambridge stop of his sold-out World Tour. Now onto his sixth studio album, the Canadian-born singer-songwriter has a larger audience than ever. For an artist with about 20 million monthly listeners, he has an unassuming presence, lumbering across the stage before settling into the mellow crooning of his new single, ‘Shining’.

With the hazy synth line of 2014’s ‘Passing Out Pieces’, he returned on his promise to play some of the ‘old stuff’, a clear departure from the bare acoustics of openers ‘Shining’ or ‘Sweeter’. As he revisits familiar hooks, sharpened by the technical skill of his band, the influential sonic qualities of his older catalogue are unmistakable.

“Bathed in warm lights and encircled by analogue equipment, DeMarco’s set deploys all the tools of nostalgia”

Indeed, the jangly charm and unpolished guitar tones of his 2014 commercial breakthrough Salad Days helped define a sound many now refer to as ‘bedroom rock’. Artists with lo-fi sensibilities like Rex Orange County, Men I Trust and Boy Pablo have even been cited as ‘Post DeMarco’.

Bathed in warm lights and encircled by analogue equipment, DeMarco’s set deploys all the tools of nostalgia. Surrounding millennials are transported back to 2012 as the now sober DeMarco recites his ‘Ode to Viceroy’, his warbling serenade to the cigarette brand. As epitomised in Pitchfork’s 2014 documentary ‘Pepperoni Playboy’ that gathered camcorder footage of his band on the road, DeMarco embodied a more innocent time of the internet. The 2010s saw the pinnacle of his cult allure, during the golden era of Vine and Tumblr when he was the gap-toothed smiling mascot of the post-indie scene.

Now, despite his resistance to the polish of commercial pop, his enduring success is tied to modern modes of circulation. The eruption of phones in response to the languid synths of ‘Heart to Heart’ exhibited his resurgent popularity on TikTok. Tracing his musical trajectory, it’s clear that the anthemic indie melodies that charged his infamously debauched concerts in the 2010s have been substituted for more stripped-back instrumentals. Tracks off his 2025 release Guitar, composed entirely of self-produced demos, benefit specifically from loose live arrangements, reflecting the unvarnished quality of recordings.

“His charismatic irreverence comes across easily on stage, reflecting his affinity for the messiness of the creative process”

Jumping sporadically between albums, DeMarco strikes the right balance of appealing to all sides of his fan base. He interposes legacy hits like ‘Freaking Out the Neighborhood’ that give the night a necessary energetic lift, while the maturity of his newer material is preserved by understated accompaniment. Minimalism does seem to be the dominant trend of his later music. His 2023 album One Wayne G, which swelled to 199 tracks, may appear to contradict this, ostensibly prioritising quantity over quality. Really, it demonstrated his love for DIY recording techniques. In an interview with the New Yorker, he said: “Some of it sounds like I’m banging on a pipe in a boiler room. Which I love,” reflecting what he calls a pathology of ‘demo-itis’ wherein he ends up preferring the earliest, most scrappy version of a song.

After wrapping up with heavy hitters ‘My Kind of Woman’ and ‘Chamber of Reflection’ (together amassing about 2 billion streams), DeMarco imparts a closing joke about an overnight stay in Royston. His charismatic irreverence comes across easily on stage, reflecting his musical aversion to studio polish, his affinity for the messiness of the creative process and for the crooked magic of the first iteration.