Twenty One Pilots Put On A Clinic For How To Do a Show Right In Saint Louis Saturday

Sean Derrick September 12, 2022 0 Comments 21P, 21Pilots, Enterprise Center, Josh Dun, Saint Louis concert review and photos, The Icy Tour, Twenty One Pilots, Tyler Joseph

–by Sean Derrick

Twenty One Pilots, one of the biggest bands in the last decade, made a stop in Saint Louis Saturday at Enterprise Center as their “The Icy Tour” rumbles around North America.

The duo of Tyler Joseph (vocals, piano, guitar, bass) and Drummer Josh Dun are on the back end of touring in support of their latest album Scaled and Icy. The Icy Tour is the continuing 3rd leg of their highly successful “Takeover Tour”.

The show began with a video of the duo walking in a snowy mountainous region until they come across a blue door in the middle of nowhere. After pondering its placement the door rises above them in a horizontal position. Josh then reaches for it and opens the door. At this moment a door opens from the floor on the stage, complete with “snow” blowing up onto the stage. The duo walks up and as the snow keeps billowing out performs “Good Day” before the curtain behind them opens up to expose a massive multi-level screen and platform that later served as a base for their touring band.

Twenty One Pilots are as much about artistic imagery as they are about their music. During “No Chances” Tyler’s ski mask was smoking amid what seemed like a blizzard of “snow” (my photographer self was both loving and hating the snow as it was super hard to get Tyler in focus during that part of the song where he was smoking.

From there he “revealed” his face and proceeded to jump into the other side of the photo pit.

The duo then performed “Guns for Hands” before the touring band came out. This tour has been the first time the duo has used backing musicians. Twenty One Pilots is still just Josh and Tyler, but in order to bring out that extra energy to the show the extra musicians were brought in.

The band, led by the ultra-high energetic bassist Skyler Acord, guitarist Dan Geraghty, trumpeter Jesse Blum, and keyboardist Paul Meany (Who’s parents were in the house enjoying themselves), certainly provided that extra “ooomph” to their songs and freed Tyler to be more artistic visually.

With bombastic explosions, smoke canons, a fabulous light display, snow, laser lights, and lots of audience interactions the duo has immersed the audience with stunning stimulants for all the senses (except smell. Although Tyler did allude to that when talking to the packed pit in front of the stage. So, we will count that.)

For the “feel” sense Josh did a drum solo on a platform held up by the crowd up front, and Tyler stage dived onto an air mattress from the B-stage to be carried up to the main stage.

Tyler walked to the lighted B-Stage through the crowd to finish out “Mulberry Street”. The B-Stage rose about 10 feet in the air and only had a piano and ukulele, from which Tyler instructed the crowd directions for an audience interaction (one of many throughout the night).

During Tyler’s solo stint at the B-Stage he performed a medley of songs from each of their six albums before grabbing the ukulele and doing a nice cover of the Elvis Presley classic “Can’t Help Falling In Love” which, thankfully, the whole arena knew (Honestly, I wondered given the young members of the crowd. It’s great to see Elvis is still popular.).

After Tyler’s stage dive back to the main stage the band and Josh had a campfire set up. Tyler walked by it and mentioned that one of these days his coat was going to catch fire, then proceeded to talk about jumping fires when he was younger. Of course the crowd started egging him on, and you know he couldn’t just let that go and proceeded to jump the campfire.Yes, that was real fire boys and girls.

Even if you don’t know much about Twenty One Pilots or their music (Yes, hard to believe, but there are some out there who fall into that category) you would still be hard pressed not to have fun at this show. Their music is appealing to multi-generational fans, that is why I was seeing fans of all ages in the seats, singing along to many of the songs. Yes, many were there with their teen kids, but many weren’t. Many were like me, in their late 40’s early 50’s drinking beer and having the time of their life. Which reiterates one thing: Music is one thing that can bring us together and shows like Twenty One Pilots are a catalyst for doing just that.

Peter McPoland opened the show with a short but wildly exuberant set. Watching his set was exhausting (but fun) and honestly, I have no idea how he keeps up with and hyper-energetic show like that.

Peter McPoland performing at Enterprise Center Saturday night. Photo by Sean Derrick/ Thyrd Eye Photography.

As a photographer it was like trying to shoot a fast action sporting event…no harder, because I could at least anticipate where to shoot at a sporting event. Excellent opener and apropos for this tour.