These past few concerts have been pretty crazy for us over here at Music Beards. A few weeks ago we attended a show at the Upstate Concert Hall in Albany to see Vinyl Theatre, MisterWives, and Twenty One Pilots. Personally for me, it’s  been about a month since seeing a live performance so I was pretty pumped for this show.

Vinyl Theatre started off the night with some amazing jams that consisted of a rock alternative sound, complemented by synth beats. It’s definitely something you would hear at a CMJ festival. They had a lot of energy and were very consistent with their sound throughout the night. My favorite song that they performed was their track entitled,  Breaking Up My Bones. Vinyl Theatre reminds me a lot of the band Small Pools. They both have that alternative rock sound with a nice added touch of synths and some pretty incredible vocals as well. Breaking Up My Bones is super catchy, upbeat, and I can’t stop singing it, and that’s not a complaint.

After their set ended, MisterWives took the stage with their upbeat-indie-alternative sound, which included trumpets, saxophones, tambourines and more. The band is primarily composed of Mandy Lee, William Hehir, and Etienne Bowler. The lead singer Mandy Lee has extremely impressive vocals and her voice reminds me of Melanie Martinez and the lead singer of Wild Mocassins. Her vocals are very soulful sounding, but still holds an upbeat energy in the songs. The band also reminded me a lot of the following artists: The Hush Sound, Brika, and Zella Day. The bands latest hit Reflections is so much fun to listen to, especially the “oooohoooohoohhoooh’s” in the chorus.  Check out their latest hit, Reflections below!

Twenty One Pilots started off their set in an extremely unique way. They had a narrator, “Nigel”- an eighty year old man’s voice recored in different bits and was then played throughout the show. Nigel introduced Twenty One Pilots, and then the band started their set with one of their favorable fast driven songs, Guns for Hands. The lead singer Tyler Joseph, had an incredible amount of energy throughout the entire set. He was jumping off of the drum riser, running back and forth on the stage, and was even singing while standing on a security guards hands while in the crowd. The drummer Josh Dun, was the same way. He even played some parts of a few of the songs on top of the crowd. They actually had a back up drum set that was placed on a board and then they placed it in the crowd while fans held it up. It’s crazy, I know. Then the drummer hopped on and started playing. At the end of the the show, both Tyler and Josh were on top of the crowd, each playing a single drum. Although crazy in the best possible way, it really made the show that much more intense and memorable. Not only did the band play new songs off their latest album Vessel, but they also covered a few pop songs as well. They played Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness”, DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win”, and Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You”. The night was filled with incredible vocals, synthesizers, piano, drums, ukulele, and they even brought out the keytar! If Twenty One Pilots are ever in your town, go to their shows and check them out! It will definitely be a great time and the openers are just as fun to watch too. Listen to their new album Vessel and watch Josh Dun drum on top of the crowd below!