It’s hard to imagine anyone, outside of the most uptight purists, not thoroughly won over at the end of a Twenty One Pilots show.
It’s no wonder the dynamic duo from Columbus has moved so quickly from “fairly local” to one of the few young groups able to rock arenas.
And did they ever rock PPG Paints Arena Friday night, before a sold-out crowd of excited, red-beanie-wearing teenagers (and assorted family members), some of whom camped out overnight on Fifth Avenue for the best spots on the packed floor.
Even with “Cancer,” the tearful My Chemical Romance song, inserted into the middle of the set, it was one of the most relentlessly happy, creative and energetic shows to ever hit an arena.
Twenty One Pilots manages to reinvent the wheel (or the wing) by embracing a whole history of pop, rock and rap and spewing it back out on stage with two athletic players. They hit the stage in standard uniform of red blazers, white shirts, skinny ties, black pants and black ski masks, doing “Heavydirtysoul,” a banger that launches with a drum rush and speed rap before breaking into a chorus of lovely neo-soul.
One song in, Josh Dun proved himself a monster rock drummer and Tyler Joseph, at a little upright keyboard, a likable frontman with a shape-shifting voice and uncanny feel for melody. Typical of a TOP song, it mashes up genres and rapidly moves through moods and tempos, evoking everything from Ben Folds to Coldplay to Eminem to [insert name of favorite ‘00s emo-rock band]. Some, like he says, are common; some transcendent. The crowd adores all of them and is ready to shout every word.
Their stagecraft is ridiculously cool, starting with a magic trick on the third song “Hometown,” where the singer-pianist was covered with a black sheet and then instantly appearied up on the top deck, unmasked, to finish the song. Peter Gabriel and David Blaine would have been proud.
He donned the red beanie and bass for the frenzied “Message Man”/“Polarize” and “Heathens” and then a black Hawaiian shirt, white shades and ukulele to jangle through “We Don't Believe What's on TV,” the reggae/hip-hop “Screen”/”The Judge” and “Lane Boy,” which teased a light funk groove before erupting into total EDM chaos with men in gas masks, hazmat suits and smoke guns.
While distracting fans with a charming video from 2011 of the Pilots on the side of the road changing a spare tire on a cheap little trailer, they slipped out to the B-stage and into skeleton suits for a mini-set that included a raucous “Ode to Sleep” and touching cover of “Cancer.”
Back on the main stage, Dun took a page from the Ginger Baker/Art Blakey playbook doing a beastly drum battle with his video self and then executing a backflip off the piano while the melody soared on “Holding on to You.”
Joseph paused to note that Pittsburgh was “one of the first cities we played out of our hometown” and welcome first-timers, saying, “Hopefully, it hasn't been too weird.”
Just in all the best ways.
Kicking the party up a notch, they reintroduced opening acts Judah and the Lion and Jon Bellion for a giddy run through Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” Backstreet’s “No Diggity,” Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love?” and House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” which had the Paintcan shaking.
How do you top that? Have the fans anchor a drum platform over their heads while Dun pushed the loping “Ride” to a furious finish; have the lithe Joseph do high-flying leaps on and off the piano while striking the perfect balance of joy and sadness in “Stressed Out”; and then have the frontman run the Flaming Lips hamster ball (red one!) over the crowd and beat a fan at Mario Kart in and around “Guns for Hands.”
They closed the set with the pure power-pop exuberance of “Tear in My Heart” and Joseph climbing a high riser on the B-stage (untethered) to scream out the last lines of “Car Radio”: “Somebody stole my car radio/And now I just sit in silence!”
Two hours in, they put an exclamation point on a dazzling show by going from a whisper to a scream on “Goner” and going all Coldplay stadium rock on “Trees,” climaxing with a crimson confetti shower and both of the boys pounding drums out on top of their fans.
Yeah, that’s why kids sleep out overnight to see them.
Speaking of stadiums, start prepping them now. Twenty One Pilots are on course to be the biggest crowd-pleasers of their generation.
In the opening slots, Nashville’s Judah and the Lion combined rowdy Americana (complete with banjos and mandolins), electronics and T-Pain and Killers covers, while the slick Jon Bellion mixed up hip-hop and soul on "All Time Low" and other radio-friendly tracks. In the buildup to Twenty One Pilots’ arrival, fans did the wave to a Sigur Ros drone. That may have been a first.
Scott Mervis: smervis@post-gazette.com; 412-263-2576. Twitter: @scottmervis_pg
First Published: January 28, 2017, 7:33 a.m.
