Twenty One Pilots are not short on ideas.
Let’s begin with their current Takeover tour that’s, well, taken over London this week. Instead of putting on one blowout at, say, The O2 Arena, the duo are building up to Wembley Arena by playing increasingly larger venues across the city. Yesterday it was Camden Assembly (that holds 400 punters), tonight Shepherd’s Bush Empire (2,000), before graduating to Brixton Academy (5,000) and, finally, the 12,500-capacity arena next to Wembley Stadium. It’s a good marketing idea that keeps the Twenty One Pilots name out there for more than one night. More importantly, it lets the band reconnect with diehard fans — one who told our photographer that he’s been queuing outside the venue since Monday morning — even though it can’t have been easy to downscale this hyperkinetic, hypervisual show.
A rapid succession of inspired concepts, it reveals one costume change, dramatic lighting shift, and performance surprise after another. Towards the end of opening salvo Good Day and No Chances, smoke plumes out of singer Tyler Joseph’s black-and-bejewelled ski mask. As Message Man climaxes, he bathes his hands in black paint to transform into the character Blurryface. During the campfire medley section, where Joseph, drummer Josh Dun, and their backing musicians “get cosy” at the foot of the stage, they’d typically light an actual campfire on stage. Health and safety put the kibosh on that tonight, but we still get to see: CO2 jets working overtime; Dun’s trademark backflip; two men in boiler suits and gasmasks spraying smoke like Derek Zoolander and his friends spray petrol at the filling station; Dun playing his kit as he’s held aloft by the audience; and both members effectively crowd surfing while beating snare drums during the confetti-littered finale of Trees.
Musically, the ideas keep coming too. Twenty One Pilots’ music is stuffed with them, channelling hip-hop, indie rock, R&B, emo, rap, soul, folk, EDM, ska, and even Elton John (sometimes all in the same song). The duo don’t hide even their most surprising influences: there’s a glitzy go at Bennie And The Jets, with the multi-instrumentalist Joseph at his piano, flamboyant sunglasses accounted for; the campfire medley features I Can See Clearly Now and My Girl (plus the sax break from Careless Whisper).
But the band’s originals get the biggest cheers from the relentlessly cheering audience. They know the lyrics — including the intricate, Eminem-speed stylings of Car Radio and Lane Boy — so well that Joseph could get through the whole show without singing a word. It’s astonishing. But this is no massaoke, this is an ambitious, high-energy arena show. The production may be downsized tonight, but the performances aren’t.
Joseph — who changes costumes as frequently as he does instruments (keys, guitar, bass) — is just as comfortable crooning House Of Gold as he is rapping Ride, or roaring his way through Shy Away, all the while bounding onto platforms, leaping off the video wall, or stepping out onto the perpetually bouncing crowd. Dun, while less mobile, is no less energetic than the singer (or the audience), working up such a sweat that he spends part of the show shirtless. And the touring musicians — including (somewhat surprisingly) a trumpet player — seem to be having as much fun as the fans, especially during the one-two of irrepressible funk-fest Heavydirtysoul and simply summery Saturday.
The Twenty One Pilots gigs at Brixton and Wembley will undoubtedly allow for an ever bigger spectacle, but it’s hard to imagine they’ll match the relentless, unbridled energy bottled up in Shepherd’s Bush Empire tonight.
Twenty One Pilots
Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
22nd June 2022
Photo: Paul Grace
- This article originally appeared on Louder Than War.
Nils van der Linden 