Hype and anticipation played a major role in Glass Animals’ last stop of their ZABA tour at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale.
The show was set to start at seven o’clock on Tuesday, December 8th, but the band’s opening act, synthetic-rock duo Gilligan Moss, didn’t appear until one and a half hours later. The positive energy the duo radiated partially soothed the audience’s strain, but once their set was done, there was another thirty minutes until Glass Animals would make their way to the stage.
¿When the lights went out and the fog began to settle around the base of the microphone stand, the audience knew what came next. A grateful and excited roar erupted from the crowd. Before the band entered, jungle noises played in the background: frogs croaking, crickets chirping, and birds calling, getting the audience into the mood.
Dave Bayley, Drew MacFarlane, Edmund Irwin-Singer, and Joe Seaward then walked onto the stage and immediately started playing “BlackMambo” from their debut album ZABA. Lead singer and guitarist Dave Bayley replaced some of the words of the song to say “Fort Lauderdale,” which made the crowd cheer with glee.
¿When Glass Animals put on a show, they really put on a show; dancing and running around the stage are just some of the antics that involve Bayley dancing on the bar during their hit single “Gooey.”
Glass Animals truly performs as a band, and they interact with each other because they know that they are all of equal parts. This helps the friends in the audience relate more with band because they can see themselves jamming on stage with each other.
¿The genre in which Glass Animals’ music falls into is hard to have set in stone. They do not play just for a listener’s sense of hearing; they play to all the senses. The music never fails to take one on a journey. The flow of all the instruments paired with Bayley’s voice make for a listening experience that one must strap in for in order to listen to. The bass of all the songs, most prevalent in “Hazey,” “Toes,” and “Exxus” helps the crowd feel the connection between every part of their body; from the tips of their toes to the beat of their hearts.
¿Having been Glass Animals’ debut album and tour, they have paved very high expectations for their next record. Taking time to connect with the audience during the set, Bayley said, “This is our first time in Florida, and sadly our last show of the tour. We will be taking time to record our next album, and we’ll definitely be back next year.”
¿Their performance definitely made up for the tardiness of the show as a whole and left audience members wanting to replay the night over and over again.
¿Concert-goer Emily Bertucci said, “Everyone was touched at the Glass Animals show tonight. Whether it was by the music, lights, or the people dancing next to them, this event encapsulated the very essence of going up on a Tuesday. I was very pleased and satisfied with their performance. I felt like I had ear buds in listening to them on a sandy beach, and it’s hard to sound as good live, but they exceeded expectations.”
¿Glass Animals closed their show with an outstanding encore. They covered “Love Lockdown,” a song originally performed by Kanye West, while interacting and dancing with the crowd in the pit. They then sent their audience away to “Pools,” the perfect dance-along track. There’s no doubt that the audience will ever be wishing for the night to have gone on forever.
