Dave Bayley, frontman of UK-based Glass Animals, said on stage that last night’s Chicago stop of the Dreamland tour was the loudest and most energetic so far. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that rang true, as a near fully packed Credit Union 1 Arena was dancing and singing along to almost every lyric while neon colors lit up the scenery and confetti cannons took up real estate above the crowd.
Glass Animals played their set featuring songs from all three of their albums, and the audio mixers made sure you felt the drums and bass in your chest. Set on a stage to mirror an outdoor pool area in a hotel from the 80’s, the band started the show with “Life Itself,” the opening track to their second LP How To Be A Human Being and closing with “Pork Soda” off of the same album. With relevant lyrics in the chorus, “Pork Soda” brought out the fans’ props and suddenly pineapples started emerging from the crowd, from a pool float to pineapple shaped paper lanterns, in addition to the real pineapple a stage crew member brought out to sit on stage prior to the show. Along with the closure, millions of colors in the shape of confetti danced through the air like the thousands of people below. There’s nothing quite like a mass of people at a concert losing their mind over a spectacle like confetti. After an hour long set, the four walked off stage without playing the song even our parents know of. I noticed the people around me look to their friends and say “There’s no way”, bleeding into the overall crowd’s chants for an encore. Surely enough, the quartet walks back on stage to perform “Tokyo Drifting” and the awaited “Heat Waves”, which as of now has amassed just under 1.5 billion streams on Spotify alone.
My personal favorite song performed, although biased because it’s my favorite song of theirs in general, was “Take a Slice”. With drum fills that vibrated the ground that we all stood and clipped the audio from my phone recordings, to this grand sound of horns that set the stage for the chorus, “Take a Slice” continued to hype the audience for the last third of their set.
Glass Animals continue on their Dreamland tour which spans into the early summer before their string of festival appearances, and you can check out our visual coverage of the photos below!
Recap/Photo Credit: Arthur Siwek for Pursuit of Dopeness
