Milkywhale-Watching Tour, Day 4

My final Milkywhale report will be brief. Although I’ve tried to catalogue as many things as I’ve learned about the project and persona they’ve crafted into a beautiful reality, I ultimately like to leave a little mystery in the galaxy of Milkywhale.

I stood around Grapevine HQ at our party, gushing about their official show the night before and trying to explain it to someone who was so unfortunate as to miss it. At that moment, I heard the now-familiar voice of a certain whale and realized they were about to play a surprise set in our very office. Then they did. The Grapevine went wild. We all squeezed up to the front so that I was literally dancing with the performer herself. It was everything I’d hoped it would be.

When it was over, I heard Melkorka explaining that the name Milkywhale had come from they way she explained her name to foreigners. “Melk,” like “milk” and “orka” like the orca whale. You learn something new every day.

When it ended, they rushed off to play their final off-venue set and us in the office debated about going to see it. Was twice in one hour a bit excessive? We’d all seen them so many times already—but we were hooked. So three of us hopped in cab and booked it across the 101 to catch the final set. We were lucky we did: they played a song they hadn’t at any of the other shows, even the official one. It was a love song called Trampoline, which was appropriate for all the jumping that happened at that last crazy show.

Of all the things I’ve learned watching and reporting on the sightings of “the glamorous whale” (their lyrics), I have one conclusion:

In my expert, scientific opinion: Milkywhale basically won Airwaves.