Glass Animals Live Review

Category Is… | Glass Animals LIVE REVIEW w/ Concert Photos | The Beacham, Orlando, Fl | December 7, 2015

by • December 22, 2015

I like when my tweets get favorited. I like my reality stars with a scarred past and future that involves a perfume launch. I like to know exactly where in the store the mid-length denim skirt with a thigh slit that I’ve been lusting after will be located and labeled appropriately, please. I like categories, and I hate them. Give me chaos, but, like, the type of chaos where I can name it, order it, seal it, and ship it out accordingly.

We like our music the same way. We like our artists with shiny Christmas packaging and stickers that tell us exactly who it’s to and who it’s from. TO: Pop Punk. FROM: The Story So Far. If we know exactly what we are getting, it is easier for us to digest and place neatly on our shelves in an almost unhealthy order. Our heads can wrap around the concept of an artist or band if we can safely place them inside a genre. Enter Glass Animals.

They are Synth-Pop. Easy. Well, actually they’re not quite pop as in what you might associate with the mainstream. Oh, okay. So they are Indie-Rock. Erm, they are alternative and rock but don’t forget their psychedelic, electronica vibes. Wait, what? There’s something called trip hop?! Is this what the Easter Bunny on acid sounds like? DAMNIT. By the time the show arrived on this Monday evening at the Beacham, my eye was twitching with anticipation to nail these guys down to a certain genre. I wanted to “gotchya!” their music so badly. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t pin down their sound to a category and although my nails were chewed down to their origin and my mental notes were like a Pollack painting; I loved every second of it.

Once I was able to let go of my mental inhibitions and my need to categorize the boys from Oxford, England, I could actually enjoy what was happening in front of me. And what was happening in front of me, was another dimension of sound unfurling on the swaying sea of concert-goers. It was almost cult-like in nature, the way each body moved together with the one next to it. “Gooey” echoed from the speakers and the followers were putty. They oozed alongside the piano trills, doing as their leader commanded; dance, move, grind, writhe; repeat. I had to be a part of it. With a nudge from a fellow staffer, (shouts to Sarabeth for being a magical, musical spirit guide), I descended the stairs and initiated myself into the crowd.

Glass Animals Live Review

I was close enough to the stage to almost rest my head on it. But there would be no rest; my limbs were listless and limp with motion. Lead singer Dave Bayley made his way to the end of stage and sat on the barricade to serenade us with his version of Kayne West’s “Love Lockdown.” He slips into the pool of people and croons straight into the eyes of an unsuspecting girl. She’s toast. Bayley ebbs about the floor, tangling the mic cord around his fingers and glides barefoot from person to person belting out the Yeezus-famed tune.

Upon finishing, he returns to the stage to stand alongside his mates and before I realize it, they are bowing and exiting. The crowd is not done with them yet. They are chanting. ONE MORE SONG. They are demanding it. It is a William Golding novel and I hope my head will not be on a stick. The hall is echoing with the hunger of the consumer; they want more. I want more, even if I can’t name it. Even if it doesn’t have a barcode. The sound is getting louder, more anxious around me. It IS me. I am shouting in hopes for one more delight, one more chance for my skin to drip in the decadence of that sound. We are obliged before it gets mutinous and soon humbled by their return.

Glass Animals Live Review

Glass Animals are an experience. They are not a genre. They cannot be defined by musical boxes. I left that evening, my pores still seeping with their sensual substance. The sooner we can get over our predilections for penning down exactly who or what an artist is, the sooner we can get behind their sound and understand their mission. We need someone to be male or female so we can know how to treat them. Shouldn’t we only need to know that they are human in order to treat them as such? Likewise, we need our music to be rock or country in order to judge its content. False. We need only to be moved by the music in order to know if it’s good. It won’t happen overnight, but I hope these musical boundaries tying bands to a category will disappear and fade with time.

For now, I am just happy I was part of an evening of music that was not black, nor white, but gray and magenta and turquoise and marigold in nature. Music as it should be. 

(Sorry, I still won’t eat the mystery flavor airhead though. Don’t be barbaric. Blue Raspberry, please.)

Glass Animals Live Review by Sarah “Sweaty Septum” Schumaker, edited by Matthew Weller.
Glass Animals Live Concert Photos by Adam Fricke.

Adam Fricke Photography

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