Formed in 2010 in Oxford,
England, the indie-pop band Glass Animal simmered in modest popularity for a
dozen years in the United States. Suddenly in 2022, the song “Heat Waves”
exploded on Tik Tok memes. The band’s next concert tour of America intended to promote
the band’s fourth studio album, I Love You So F***ing Much, which was
released this past July 19. By this time, interest in Glass Animals had mushroomed
to allow the band to become arena headliners, evidenced by a stop at Madison
Square Garden.
On the previous American tour
in 2022, the stage set looked like the court of a resort hotel with a simulated
swimming pool, basketball hoops, neon palm trees and other visual props. This
year’s set appeared much simpler and less defined, looking perhaps like the
inside of a space station. The significance was that in the past, each of the
four band members appeared to be on an equal plane; now the musicians, for most
of the performance, were on a back platform, further distanced from the singer,
who spent most of the MSG show near the edge of the stage. Vocalist Dave Bayley
was now the primary focal point, as he danced and paced several feet in front
of Drew MacFarlane (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Edmund Irwin-Singer
(bass, keyboards, backing vocals), and Joe Seaward (drums).
As Glass Animals’ popularity
grows, fans have been building a signature culture around the band’s identity.
Along the front barricade, numerous fans held inflatable animals, the black and
white dairy cows dominating. The band has associated itself with pineapples,
and several fans along the front line wore sunglasses designed with pineapple images.
Bayley likewise did all he
could to endear himself to the audience. Now performing without his trademark
eyeglasses, the overhead video projections captured closeups of his perpetual
smile. He professed several times his gratitude for the fans whose presence in
the audience permitted Glass Animals to debut as headliners at the world’s most
famous arena. Midway through the concert, he ran into the audience to sing a
song on what might have been a narrow pedestal placed in the middle of the arena
floor, as fans balanced him by holding his legs and one of his hands while he sang
into the microphone he held with his other hand. At a later moment in the
concert, Bayley held a real pineapple and sought someone along the edge of the
stage to whom he would gift it, eventually choosing a fan that he said he
recognized as having attended Glass Animals concerts for years.
Glass Animals began its set
with “whatthehellishappening?” from the newest album. The song utilized the
metaphor of being kidnapped and locked into the trunk of a car to explore the ironic
exhilaration in relinquishing control. Rather than expressing the shock of
being kidnapped, the question posed by the song’s title reflected the shock of enjoying
the experience.
Otherwise, Glass Animals’
lyrics explored the mysteries of life, but the mixing of metaphors generated unsatisfactory
conclusions. The repertoire went as far back as the first album with “Gooey,” which
evoked youthful exploration and the desire to escape from the mundane, yet also
touched on a bad relationship. The set included highlights from the band’s
second and third albums, plus a whopping eight songs from the current album.
The encore ended the night with “Heat Waves,” a song about a man who finds himself
disappointed when his romantic relationship is not entirely reciprocal.
The songs latched onto simple,
repetitive grooves. The audience bopped to the chill rhyths of the
synth-dominated songs. Not much developed musically within the compositions,
however. Bayley sang with a moderate tone, which he enhanced with modulating
inflection. He injected a few impressive guitar solos, but they did not happen
often enough. The rest of the band mostly provided a cinematic wash of monochromatic
sound. In the end, the real mystery was not in the song lyrics but in how the band
and its lukewarm performance is getting so popular so quickly.
Setlist
- whatthehellishappening?
- Life Itself
- Wonderful Nothing
- Space Ghost Coast to Coast
- A Tear in Space (Airlock)
- Creatures in Heaven
- Youth
- Lost in the Ocean
- Gooey
- How I Learned to Love the Bomb
- Show Pony
- On the Run
- Take a Slice
- Pork Soda
- Tokyo Drifting
Encore
- The Other Side of Paradise
- Heat Waves
***
The Manhattan Beat reports on New
York City's live music circuit. All articles are written by Everynight Charley
Crespo. All photographs are taken by Everynight Charley Crespo, except when
noted otherwise.
For a list of Manhattan venues that are presenting live music
regularly, swing the desktop cursor to the right of the The Manhattan
Beat home page and click on the pop-up tab "Where to Find Live
Music."
For a more complete listing of upcoming performances in the New York City area, visit The Manhattan Beat's August calendar.
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