No matter in what form or genre, live music always brings me joy. Wellesley features several live music clubs including acapella groups like the Tupelos and Wellesley Widows, ensembles like the Chamber Music Society (which I am a part of!) and BlueJazz, choirs like the Wellesley College Choir, and really cool groups like the Guild of Carillonneurs and Yanvalou. The Guild of Carillonneurs play the carillon up in the Founders tower – you can hear them playing anything from the Sherlock Holmes theme to Harry Potter music on your way to class and during their concerts throughout the year. The Yanvalou Drum and Dance ensemble learns to play and perform folkloric African music.
My brothers-in-law would listen to live music recordings on YouTube instead of Spotify, showing me the videos from concerts that they’ve been to. They’ve been to a few in Madison Square Garden where Japanese bands like L’Arc-en-Ciel and ONE OK ROCK played. It’s fascinating to me that entire stadiums could be filled with people who put the same songs on loop in their playlists. Two months ago, my roommate Amy Xuan and I ordered tickets to a Twenty One Pilots concert that took place at TD Garden in Boston this past Saturday evening. Though some of their songs are very ‘middle school,’ listening back to their more experimental, story-telling-focused older albums like Vessel and Twenty One Pilots and their newest album Scaled and Icy, I like their music a lot actually. Their music varied a lot over time – listening to their albums feels like a lot of things – both a throwback and a sigh of relief. Two quick song recommendations: “Oh Ms Believer” from Twenty One Pilots and “Mulberry Street” from Scaled and Icy. 🙂
half•alive performing at TD Garden
On that Saturday evening, Amy and I took the shuttle out to Boston to get an early dinner. We walked a block or two down from the 45 Massachusetts Avenue stop to a restaurant called Pho Basil – there was a really long line and a waiter mispronounced my name so much that I didn’t even recognize it (it’s all good though), but the food was worth it. We even saw someone with a Twoset Violin shirt (TwoSet is a pair of Australian violinists on YouTube who mess around with music challenges for fun). After dinner, we took a quick pit stop at TJ Maxx before taking the Green Line to TD Garden. We had first row balcony seats, and though we were really far away from the stage, the lighting looked incredible from our vantage point. It was also really funny whenever the crowd in the pit crouched down altogether or started jumping. They were so tiny, they looked like Sims dancing in sync at a party – it was hilarious.
The concert opened with two bands – Jay Joseph and half•alive. I did not do my research that I should’ve, so I didn’t realize until half•alive appeared on stage that they would be playing. It was a pleasant surprise – I was just listening to their album a day ago! They even performed their new song “Make Of It.” I didn’t realize how central their dances and choreographies were to their performances and music until seeing them live – they looked incredible.
Twenty One Pilots performing “The Outside” from Scaled and Icy
At around 8:45 PM Twenty One Pilots opened their concert with “Good Day” from their Scaled and Icy album. They played some old favorites like “Stressed Out,” “Heathens,” and “Ride” and interspersed their older songs with songs from their new album. When “Mulberry Street” started playing, everyone turned on their phone flashlights, and since the new album’s cover colors are pink and blue, some had pink and blue lights on too.
There was a short intermission segment where Josh Dun asked us to basically play madlibs with him to make a tweet for the evening. He commented that ever since he started tweeting consistently, on the contrary, he had been steadily losing followers. 🙁 But now, if you search up his Twitter, he tweeted that he gained some followers. 🙂
Josh Dun’s concert tweet
We took a really late train home – the Green Line is truly awful. After getting to Hynes, we took the 12:20 AM shuttle bus home and slept at around 2 AM. We were so drained, and we had chamber rehearsal at 8:30 AM the next morning. I don’t think there’s any enlightening message here. It was a fun but tiring evening – I’m glad we went. Enjoy live music whenever and wherever you can, and check out Wellesley’s Concert Series! 🙂
Josh Dun’s post-concert follower update tweet