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.
Nils van der Linden 