On May 21st, 2019, I finally got to see the band that I have loved since 2015. That band was Twenty One Pilots. After missing their last show in Ottawa in 2016 I knew that the Bandito tour was a show I HAD to attend! It was a night filled with laughter, dancing, and lots of tears. Doors for the show opened at 6pm, but because of traffic I knew my friends and I were not going to arrive until 6:30pm. Surprisingly, for being later than what we wanted we still managed to get extremely close to the stage! (Even closer once the show started and everyone pushed together). Once 8pm hit, it was time to experience the best show of my entire life thus far.
Twenty One Pilots opened their set with 'Jumpsuit' which included pyro, smoke, a car engulfed in flames as Tyler stood on it and sang and an explosion of yellow confetti that poured over the entire crowd. During 'Fairly Local' towards the final chorus Tyler fell through the stage through a trapdoor only to reappear in the upper section of the arena! 'Lane Boy' is the song that personally got me even more hyped than before. Tyler would remind the crowd that this is our show and that everyone is watching us in the pit. With that said, he told us all to get down as low as we could and on the count of three we all jumped up and went absolutely crazy with people in gasmasks sprayed the crowd with thick white smoke. After their B-stage songs, Tyler and Josh took the bridge they have set up at the shows and walked over the crowd, with Josh taking his shirt off and Tyler sitting down directly above me to sing a verse of 'Pet Cheetah'. My favorite song off of 'Trench' is 'Morph' and when I found out they were playing the album in full on the tour that was the one song I waited all night for. As expected it was the best song on the setlist. (Not to be biased or anything). Josh put his drum kit on the crowd and he came and performed the best drum solo I've ever heard! It started off with a short cover of 'Seven Nation Army' which abruptly stopped with the narration in the back chanting "Not Done. Not Done. Not Done. Josh Dun." to which Josh belted out his solo. Twenty One Pilots have so much trust in their fans, especially since they are so confident they won't be dropped, which has not happened yet, fortunately! It was all fun and games until we reached 'Leave The City'. Once that song began playing, I'm still not sure what came over me, but I just sobbed non stop. I had to lean on my friend where we cried on each other's shoulders just because we were both so overcome with emotion. The crying fest lasted all the way through to 'Trees". Despite all the tears I was able to pull myself together for one last moment when Tyler told us to jump once more and then both Tyler and Josh stood on the crowd with their drum platforms. As the show came to a close yellow and green confetti shoots out and rains all over the crowd once more, signaling the end of the Twenty One Pilots show.
Overall, the show was a 10/10. I would recommend you see a Twenty One Pilots show at least once in your life because they really do put on such an amazing performance and the hard work that went into the production and layout of everything was extravagant!! After spending a year listening to 'Blurryface' on repeat, finally seeing the band that impacted your life in so many ways really is a surreal experience.
