Glass Animals at recordBar, Kansas City, MO (06 Mar 2020)

Glass Animals Setlist

1. Tokyo Drifting
2. Life Itself
3. Black Mambo
4. Hazey
5. Poplar St.
6. The Other Side of Paradise
7. Space Ghost
8. Gooey
9. Heat Waves
10. Cane Shuga
11. Youth
12. Your Love (Deja Vu)
    — Encore —
13. Season 2 Episode 3
14. Pork Soda

Tour Dates

It was déjà vu all over again as Kansas City showed all their love, hazey and gooey, for Oxford, UK band Glass Animals at a very sold-out recordBar, with screams and cheers very possibly louder than the club’s walls have ever heard before.

The event was part of the band’s initial dates on their Déjà Vu Tour, playing a handful of small clubs like they first played when just starting out, one-tenth or so the size of their normally-played venues (i.e. we saw them last in 2017 at the 2800 capacity Palace Theatre); all dates of which, sold out not within minutes, but in mere seconds, making this the hottest and most desired concert ticket of the year, thus far.

Glass Animals (Dave Bayley – vocals/guitar; Drew MacFarlane– guitar/keys; Ed Irwin-Singer– bass/keys; Joe Seaward– drums) has developed a special kinship with Kansas City, one of its earliest and still-strongest US markets, as evidenced by the band coming into town a day early, to surprise fans with an impromptu meet and greet pop-up, and hiding a few much-coveted golden ticket passes around downtown, for the many fans that missed on tickets, to scramble to find with help from coordinates posted on social media.

The band took a well deserved break after their last tour, partially as a result of drummer Seaward being struck by a truck in Ireland while cycling, which resulted in serious injuries, but they have returned strongly with a few new songs, in anticipation of a new full-length to follow.

The eighty-five minute set (with no opening act) started with the intro music of Rupert Holmes’ ‘The Pina Colada Song’ and lights going down as the crowd’s yelling and cheering rose in anticipation and the new song, ‘Tokyo Drifting’ to begin things. “Kansas City, it’s SO good to be back!” singer Bayley announced, as the deep bass beats began the track.

The club was cramped and packed, but with everyone present smiling and happy to make it in, most already knowing all the words to even the very newest songs and singing along all night. Lighting, as with their previous shows, kept the band bathed in monochrome colors and patterns throughout the set (making it a bit difficult from a photo standpoint) and the always-in-motion singer Bayley first emerged in a baseball jersey, to soon remove it in favor of a simple printed t-shirt.

The tribal beats of ‘Life Itself’ had everyone dancing in the tiny amount of space they had around them and singing the chorus back to the band, even louder than Bayley himself could muster with an amplified mic.

“Our favorite city in the world!” Bayley confessed before a grooving ‘Black Mambo’ and the crowd’s continued singing along with every lyric. “We’ve been in the studio, working on some new s#*t, and I think some of it is ready to be played for you” Bayley announced, going into new release, ‘Space Ghost’, a trippy, psych pop number with pronounced percussion and rhythms.

For 2014 radio hit, ‘Gooey’ Bayley outdid himself, moving from the small main stage through the crowd to first perch atop a back table surrounding a support beam. Then, he briefly darted outside the club’s front door mid-song (something we’ve never seen before) to serenade the many fans outside that couldn’t get in, that still stayed to try and hear through the front windows, to then return inside to finish the song, while walking across the main bar.

After the new ‘Heat Waves’, Bayley said ‘Let’s do some dancing!” as the electro blips from the familiar ‘Cane Shuga’ started, with the crowd happily obliging. The audience basically provided most of the vocals for ‘Youth’ as Bayley and band looked on gleefully, and the main set ended with current single, ‘Your Love (Déjà Vu)’.

The encore began with the mid-tempo “SE02 E03’ and a collage of 8-bit inspired graphics projected on both the band and the venue’s white plastered back wall, then Bayley grabbed a fabled whole pineapple for 2017 hit, ‘Pork Soda’ with fans screaming and reaching for it like it was made from gold. “Pineapples are in my head” Bayley sang as fans’ heads bobbed, arms flailed and clapped along, and Bayley casually tossed the pineapple to a lucky fan, just before the song’s first chorus. 

For the longtime fans, it was déjà vu again, to see Glass Animals in a small and intimate venue like they may have first experienced; for the new fan, it was an extremely lucky chance to see a big band in a small club, and for everyone present, it was a very rare, fortunate, and memorable one-of-a-kind live experience that likely will not be forgotten.

(click on any photo below to enlarge and see full image)