By KAYLA DEMICCO
Opinions Editor
On Jan. 12, my roommate, Cailey Wolfgang and I went to rock out to our third Panic! at the Disco concert, held at the Times Union Center in downtown Albany.
You might be thinking: “They still make music?” or “They’re still around?” The answer is “Yes.” Despite many of his band members leaving throughout the years, Brendon Urie is still making music and touring. Their most recent album, “Pray For The Wicked,” was released back in June 2017.
Several hours before the concert started, fan account on Twitter, @panicupdating, announced that the show was sold out after tickets being available for almost six months. Just after that, the Times Union Center announced that extra seats were added due to the show being sold out. The band’s official account tweeted an hour and a half before doors were set to open to let followers know of the 30 additional floor seats added to the floor.
Opening for Panic! at the Disco, was alternative singer-songwriter, Two Feet and pop singer, Betty Who. Betty Who brought the crowd to their feet with her hit songs “Mama Say,” “Somebody Loves You,” and “I Love You Always Forever.” Two Feet rocked the place as he passionately played his electric guitar to songs such as “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Go F**ck Yourself,” and “I Feel Like I’m Drowning.” He informed the crowd that he’s from New York City and that Tuesday’s show was the largest home state show he’s ever played.
As the ten minute countdown before Panic! At the Disco hit the stage, the lights dropped and the crowd shouted for joy. The four minute mark hits and Weezer’s cover of “Africa” plays, filling the entire arena. The crowd sings along and waves their phone flashlights in excitement as they await the band to arrive on stage.
The band’s instrumentalists, the Wicked Strings (a three-piece orchestra), the Horny Boys (a brass/woodwind trio), and their drummer rise to the stage and start to play the beginning of the opening song “(F**k A) Silver Lining.” The music stops playing for a second as the lights drop. The first line, “Ode to old and to the new, We rededicate this song to you” plays, a single spotlight hits center stage, the bassists and guitarist walk on stage, Brendon Urie jumps up from the stage and starts singing.
It’s a feeling that never gets old to see the artist finally come on stage and to feel the energy of the audience when the concert first starts.
The setlist consisted of nine songs from their latest album, “Pray For The Wicked,” seven songs from “Death Of A Bachelor,” five songs from “Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die! four throwback songs from their earlier, and three covers.
Songs to make their live debut for the 2019 tour, were “One of the Drunks,” “Roaring 20s” and “The Greatest Show” (from The Greatest Showman: Reimagined).
As “Death of a Bachelor” started, Urie made his way off to the right of stage and started to walk through the audience, which is called “The Death Walk.” As he makes his way through the crowd while singing, he greets, hugs, and takes pictures with beaming fans. When he gets to the B Stage, he climbs up on the white grand piano and the piano rises in the air and starts singing Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love.” The piano begins to move over the audience on the floor as he sings “Dying in L.A.” and waves at the people below.
During “Girls/Girls/Boys,” most people in the audience each picked up a different colored paper heart that was left on their seat and shined their flashlight through to create a pride flag out lights. At the end of the song, rainbow confetti came showering down from the ceiling.
This act of showing love and spreading positivity was all started by two girls from Boston, Massachusetts and called it the “PATD Hearts Project.” These two girls make sure that this happens at every Panic! at the Disco show by recruiting volunteers and organizing groups based on the concert’s location. Within those groups, the people going to the show are responsible for organizing their venue’s heart set up. For the Albany show, Cailey was the group leader and had help from 17 other people (myself included) going to the concert.
A personal favorite moment of the concert was towards the end of “High Hopes” at the breakdown when it goes acapella and Urie stops singing and lets the audience sing the chorus at him.
Despite being played at almost every concert since the beginning of their career, the crowd still was glad to sing along to their most well-known song, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.”
Before closing out the show with “Victorious,” Urie took a moment to thank the audience for coming and spreaded some words of positivity. He reminded everyone how “astronomically insane” it is that we were all born and present at the same time.
“You are more important than you know,” he preaches.
At the end of “Victorious,” white confetti with the band’s logo, a white confetti with a skeleton key on it, and gold confetti filled the arena as it came from the ceiling. I managed to catch multiple pieces to make up for the other concerts that I didn’t get any.
Brendon Urie is one to never fail to entertain. The energy that him and his band (and special props to the crew who helped make the whole thing possible) brought to the Times Union Center was just what I needed to start off the semester. It’s definitely not going to be my last time seeing them if they go on another tour.
