By Mark Ventrice
On January 15th, I got to attend the Panic! At
The Disco concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, NY. They were supported
by Betty Who and Two Feet, who both played small sets leading up to a near hour
and a half set from Panic! At The Disco.
First up was Betty Who, a British pop act who spend her
small set dancing with to male models while singing some songs that did not
really fit the vibes of the rest of the show. Two Feet were up next, and they
spent their set playing a bunch of songs that were very heavy in bass which
made my seats shake for the entirety of their set. The energy was not there
until they played “It Feels Like I’m Drowning”, their one huge hit, and then
they got the crowd hyped up and into their set. It was too little too late though
and most of the crowd wanted to hear Panic at this point.
Brendon Urie showed off his theatrics right from the start
by jumping up from a hole in the stage and launching nearly 5 feet into the
air. They opened up their set playing “Fuck A (Silver Lining)” which lead to
the greatest moment of my show, hearing a 5-year-old girl sitting next to me
scream the lyrics “Fuck a silver lining. As the show went on, they inserted
different ideas into the stage show to make things crazy, like during
“Crazy=Genius” flames came out of the bottom of the stage and moved along to
the song or a piano coming up from under the stage, so Brendon could play “Nine
in the Afternoon.”
They closed the first half of their set playing “This is
Gospel” and at the end of the song Brendon returned to the bottom of the stage
and an extended outro played as they set more stuff up. The next song, “Death
of a Bachelor” started with Brendon walking through the floor section of the
arena, hugging fans and signing autographs while still singing the song
perfectly. The song finished as he approached the sound programming area in the
back of the floor section where he got on a piano and played a cover of Bonnie
Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” The piano rose up into the air on a
platform and in one of the craziest moments of the show, the platform moved
through the air as he played and then got up and looked over the edges singing
down to the fans 15 feet in the air. Brendon rode the piano all the way from
the back of the floor to the stage then he played another cover, this time
their cover of “The Greatest Show” from the 2017 movie “The Greatest Showman.”
When playing “Girls/Girls/Boys” the crowd was given colored
hearts to put over our flashlights on our phones which when looked at from the
front made a pride flag through the entire crowd. Brendon was also given a
bunch of pride flags during the song. Nearly at the end of the show, Brendon
talked about how much he looked up to Freddie Mercury and how he thinks Queen
is the best band of all time and “Bohemian Rhapsody” was the greatest song ever
written. This led to one of the best covers of “Bohemian Rhapsody” I have ever
heard, and Brendon Urie had all the stage presence and skills to do an
excellent Freddie Mercury impression. The main set closed with “Emperor’s New
Clothes” and they left the stage for about 5 minutes to set up for the encore.
During the encore, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” was played
to the excitement of the crowd, then they closed the show with “Victorious.”
In my opinion, this was one of the best shows I have ever
seen, both musically and as a stage show. Brendon showed why Panic! At The
Disco is still riding strong in 2019.
