A one-off audiovisual experience from a band I love in a time of quarantine? I’ll take it! Especially if it’s coming from the likes of Glass Animals and off the heels of their most recent release, Dreamland.
And “Dreamland” is right what the show kicked off with! A truly beautiful opening track that set the stage for the whole rest of the show. Lights galore from behind and below, which at times transformed into an insane Zoom call or glistening swimming pool. Either way, they definitely had the visual part covered. I also had no doubts about the audio parts. Even though I’ve never seen Glass Animals in person myself, past research on live Youtube clips gave me the foreknowledge that they were going to be epic, and they were!
In fact, it was so magnificent that I told my sister that I wasn’t totally sure if he was lip-synching or not. My fears were put to rest when subtle variations in the songs started making their way through their performance. But that means this bunch has some serious talent! Like insanely amazing! A good chunk of the show featured songs from their latest album, which I fully expected, and was nowhere near upset about it. They brought in some socially distanced guest vocalists, with one including Arlo Parks on a new version of a fan favorite, “Tangerine.”
While I enjoyed the new stuff, the old stuff is what I was looking for, and that’s mainly because I have never seen them live. I was not disappointed when they brought out hits “Gooey” and “Youth,” but my favorite was the closing song of the show “Pork Soda.” That might be one of my favorite songs of all time, so clearly I’m glad they feel the same way about it. The group rocked the stage as well as one can with no audience, but with the energy they brought it is obvious how bad they wanted to perform this in front of physical human beings…not behind a screen. Hopefully soon!
Overall, the show was great; however, that was after I was actually able to view it. Right from the go I had issues when I was never sent the email with my link and passcode to the performance. By the time support reached back out to me the show was already 30 minutes in! And then, after approximately four songs, the stream died. Based on the chat comments flying by I was not the only one experiencing these problems. That would have been all fine and dandy if I didn’t already know that all the communication about the show said it would be aired live only. So this means I paid to watch not even the amount of time an opening band would normally perform. Thankfully, after a handful of refreshes there was a note from the platform stating we would have 24 hours to view the show in full! So not all live, but still a great experience nonetheless (just not the platform). In this time of the internet, I can wait to shut my laptop and head back to as many concerts as I can muster – hopefully to see them again!