Madison Square Garden is often referred to as one of the greatest entertainment venues in the whole world. It sits central to Manhattan and is the pinnacle of live music venues in America, certainly in New York City. It doesn’t get much better than that. Selling out the venue in general, let alone for your very first time playing Madison Square Garden, is a hard feat to achieve. But on the evening of August 13th, British indie pop band Glass Animals did exactly that. Their Tour of Earth tour touched down in Manhattan, bringing along hip-hop artist Kevin Abstract for an unforgettable night of interstellar fun.
As doors opened, fans began pouring into the world famous arena, racing to be the first to the front row barricades. When the show kicked off, fans were greeted with the high energy stage presence of Kevin Abstract. A former member of hip-hop boy band Brockhampton, Abstract opted to pursue a solo career in 2019 and has released three studio albums since then. He began his set from the photo pit, hopping down from the stage and climbing onto the front row barricade to get up close and personal with the fans. He opened with “BIG DOG” to set the mood for his performance, before throwing in a handful of other fan favorites of his. Midway through his set, he threw it back to his Brockhampton days, offering fans a sampler of some of the boy band’s biggest hits including “GUMMY”, “BUZZCUT” and “RZA”.
Kevin Abstract made sure to top off his Madison Square Garden performance with an extra special guest to join him: Lil Nas X. The two openly queer rappers joined together for the final moments of Abstract’s set and the crowd was going absolutely wild. It was safe to say that the bar had been set quite high for the remainder of the evening.
A brief 30 minute intermission between sets allowed for fans to catch their breath and come back to earth, just in time for Glass Animals to take the stage and send us all back to outer space. A massive curtain was draped in front of the stage, donning the band’s most recent album title I Love You So F**king Much. The energy throughout the venue was buzzing, all 19,500 fans in attendance were bursting at the seams with excitement for what was to come.
A short interstellar video commenced on the side stage screens before the curtain dropped and it was time to party. Glass Animals wasted no time, immediately ripping into “whatthehellishappening?”. The stage was set up like the central command of a space station, with all four members of the band (Dave Bayley, Drew MacFarlane, Edmund Irwin-Singer, and Joe Seaward) spaced out across the arena’s massive stage. Noted for his extremely high energy performance and rambunctious dance moves, lead vocalist Dave Bayley did exactly that.
Glass Animals offered fans a wide variety of songs from their highly successful and ever growing discography. Halfway through the set, Bayley fled from the stage to the middle of the arena floor, where he stood atop the barricade to perform one of the band’s first hit singles, “Gooey”. Supported by the very fans who made this evening possible, Bayley’s vocals were smooth and sultry, reminding us of the bands staple “peanut butter vibes”.
After returning to the stage, the energy of the set was turned down for a little while the band performed some of their slower songs like “How I Learned To Love The Bomb”, “Show Pony” and “On The Run”. However, just when we might have thought we’d seen the last of it, the screen at the back of the stage lit up like a vintage computer from the 80’s with the 8-bit text that read “TOKYO DRIFTING” — and the crowd went nuts. And just like that, the energy was back up to levels I haven’t seen in quite some time. Glass Animals concluded their set with a two song encore that featured “Life Itself” and their smash hit “Heat Waves”.
This year marked eight years of covering Glass Animals’ journey to success here in New York City. From selling out the 3,000 capacity Terminal 5 venue to summers in Brooklyn at Prospect Park Bandshell and back to back sold out nights at The Brooklyn Mirage, the growth of Glass Animals over the last decade has been quite the treat to witness. I can think of no band more hard working and deserving of the massive success they have received. Glass Animals’ “Tour of Earth” was certainly their best one yet and for a fleeting moment on the evening of August 13th, inside the walls of Madison Square Garden, we were all just creatures, in heaven.
