REVIEW: Twenty One Pilots, AWOLNATION, Max Frost @ TD Garden 10/26

By Jarrad Levy

Twenty One Pilots are the most interesting band working today. The two-piece of singer Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun are able to merge the genres of rap, pop, emo, and reggae seamlessly in their music, effectively creating their own genre that no one else has been able to replicate. Joseph claims that he simply makes music that he wants to hear, but very clearly he’s not the only one. In 2015 the duo broke through with their album Blurryface and traded in small clubs for full-on arenas. In the summer of 2016, they even sold out Madison Square Garden on two back-to-back nights.

After the tour that took them to MSG, they went on a brief, self-imposed hiatus where Joseph seemingly dropped off the face of the planet. While they called the almost two years that no one heard from them a “hiatus,” Joseph was really building a world: the world of their fifth studio album, Trench. The album is a rock opera, telling the story Joseph himself trapped in the dystopian city of Dema and his continued failed escape attempts. In July, with no prior notice, the band released their first two singles, “Jumpsuit” and “Nico and the Niners,” from the album, along with dates for the Bandito Tour–a tour that would take the band around the world between late-2018 and mid-2019. The real question is could the band trap lightning in a bottle a second time with their new album and tour coming off what was easily the most successful period in their history?

In fairness and full disclosure, Twenty One Pilots is my favorite band and I have loved them for almost four years, but do not let my opinion on the band take away from the fact that the band put on an absolutely killer show at the TD Garden from anyone’s perspective.

On paper, the show seemed like it had the potential to be a bit disappointing. The setlist cut staples of the band’s show like “Ode to Sleep” and “Screen,” but they had to make room for their new songs somehow, and the band was clearly not compromising by cutting out their massive hits like “Heathens,” “Ride,” and the band’s breakthrough single, “Stressed Out.” For any experienced Twenty One Pilots showgoer, this is disappointing. However, any fears I had about the quality of the show were immediately erased when Dun came on stage, holding a torch, and lighting a car on fire that Joseph was standing on. They immediately shredded into the heaviest song in their arsenal, “Jumpsuit,” and followed it with another single from Trench, “Levitate,” where Joseph flows with the same speed and vigor seen from talented rappers like Kendrick Lamar or Eminem. Using these two songs to open their set was genius. It introduces the more casual fans at the show to the two sides of the Twenty One Pilots spectrum.

The two opening songs were followed by a long string of the band’s staples from their last tour including their massive hits like “Stressed Out” and “Heathens” and fun ukulele ballads like “The Judge” and “We Don’t Believe What’s On TV” during which Joseph had the whole crowd screaming “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” along with him. Despite the fact that “We Don’t Believe What’s on TV” has been played at almost every show the duo has played since the release of Blurryface, it was still one of the most fun songs they played during the show.

Eventually the band returned to Trench with “Nico and the Niners,” during which a skybridge dropped from the ceiling and the band walked over to their “B Stage” in the center of the floor where they played three significantly slower songs including “Taxi Cab” (from their debut self-titled album which has not been played in over four years) and “Bandito,” which is effectively an emo anthem from the new album. The song sent chills down my spine with the way Joseph delivered the lines “I created this world to feel some control / Destroy it if I want so I sing.” They returned to the main stage during the energetic “Pet Cheetah” where Joseph tells the world he has a pet cheetah in his basement named after none other than Jason Statham. The end of the song was awesome with the entire crowd jumping around and chanting “pet cheetah” along with the beat.

The two band members then called their opening acts, Max Frost and AWOLNATION, to the stage to perform two covers with them, “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls and “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. Personally, I thought the band sounded better on “Iris” than the Goo Goo Dolls ever did and they truly did the beauty of “Hey Jude” justice. These two covers were highlights of the set.

Upon getting ready to close the show, they played their consistent, but always pleasing main set ender, “Car Radio.” Five years later, Joseph is still able to instill the innate passion into a song that makes it a fan favorite. It is the perfect set-ender, going from slow to raucous and back to slow as Joseph ran to the back of the arena, climbed a tall platform, and sang his heart out until exhaustion. Then the audience was forced to “sit in silence.”

The band quickly returned for their two song encore of “Leave the City” and “Trees.” During “Leave the City,” the entire arena was singing with melancholy along with Dun as he played the piano, singing about how “it” was soon going to end. Despite the fact that the song has a very different context on Trench, the crowd knew that the “it” Joseph was singing about was the show. Joseph and Dun closed by playing the drums to “Trees” in tandem while being held up by the crowd with yellow confetti layering the arena. After the song, Joseph took to the microphone one last time to tell the crowd they would be back and that “We are Twenty One Pilots and so are you.”

Out of the four shows I have seen from this band, this was the best. There was an energy emanating from Joseph. He was audibly excited to be showing the world the songs he created while purposefully locking himself in his basement for two years. The vigor he had on stage made the band’s last arena tour look puny despite the similar setlists and vibes. I adored this show and was exactly what I had been waiting for years after seeing them over two years ago. Ultimately, if you have the option to see the band on their Bandito World Tour or any tour, I cannot recommend going enough. The show was extremely fun and being with so many other yellow-clad banditos was an experience I won’t be soon forgetting.