PHOTOS: JULIA LOFSTRAND | Twenty One Pilots, duo Tyler Joseph (vocals) and Josh Dun (drums), have been selling out venues since 2016. They are far beyond the days when Joseph’s mom would stand outside the band’s native Ohio State University gigs and ask people to come to her son’s show. The Greek Theatre, the third stop of the Los Angeles leg of their highly awaited “Takeover Tour” was no exception in numbers. Other Los Angeles stops included the legendary Troubadour, The Wiltern, and The Forum.
A couple of weeks prior the band played a unique venue: before the start of the “Takeover Tour” Twenty One Pilots and Robolox, a virtual reality company, filmed a 20-minute set featuring the duo as avatars for an interactive VR music concert. The virtual leg of their tour received just over 13 million visitations. But back on planet Earth, specifically The Greek Theatre—and with vaccination cards or negative covid tests in hand—the crowd was clear that they were there for the real thing.
Cited by Rolling Stone magazine “as one of the hardest-to-categorize hit acts in recent memory,” there was no confusion amongst their fans as they shape-shifted their way through rap, pop-punk, reggae, and pop piano ballads with impassioned stage theatrics among their 21 song set. There were also black ski masks and rhinestone studded goggles.
During “Message Man,” Joseph dipped his hands in a bowl of his signature black warpaint, representing his insecurities, and offered them up toward the sky. Josh Dun’s drums were moved directly into the crowd for “Saturday.” During “Ride,” Joseph let the audience know it was his father’s favorite song as he crowd surfed deep into audience and ran back up to the stage to finish on piano.
Jimmy Cliff’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” The Temptations’ “My Girl,” and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros’ “Home” were conjoined during a 6-person multi-instrumental campfire session featuring Joseph on the ukulele as the crowd waved their cellphone lighters in the air. The encore’s “Shy Away” was mixed with My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay (I Promise).”
The night’s two opening acts, Arrested Youth and Half-Alive, were sensible choices for Twenty One Pilots fans and proof that feel-good, pop-punk with elements of hip-hop is an unrelenting pairing. Twenty One Pilots has been quoted saying that “their purpose for making music is to make people think and encourage them to find joy in what they come to believe in life.” There is a similar motif in the lyrics and thought-provoking stage presence among the night’s acts. Apparently this is a generation wide-awake to the scale of the world’s problems and the numerous fears and insecurities waging wars internally.
If Indigo Children are to be real, then it’s bands like Twenty One Pilots who are their sonic messengers. By sifting through dark emotions they are offering their fanbase a shoulder to lean on, and for the numerous watchful parents at the show, the comfort of knowing their children are listening to aggressive sounding music with the intent of connecting and soothing angst.
ARRESTED YOUTH
HALF ALIVE
TWENTY ONE PILOTS
