Twenty One Pilots at the Greek Theatre

Twenty One Pilots stopped at the Greek Theatre on September 30th.

Twenty One Pilots was formed in Columbus, OH by four members and just two years later became a duo. For ten years, Twenty One Pilots had been just Tyler Joseph (Vocals, Guitar, Piano) and Josh Dun (Drums). This duo has been making music history the past decade, being the first group to have every song on not one but two albums reach either gold or platinum status. It was their fourth album Blurryface (2015) which found breakthrough success being the first album in history to receive at least a gold certification for each track. Twenty One Pilots was also the first alternative group to have two top 5 singles in the Billboard Hot 100. On top of that they were the third group behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley to have two singles simultaneously hit the top 5 in the Hot 100.

Twenty One Pilots Takeover Tour included four stops at four legendary venues big and small in Los Angeles, CA. Twenty One Pilots sold out the Troubadour, Wiltern, Greek Theater, and The Forum. In an era where touring has become an artist’s biggest way to profit, Twenty One Pilots has released six albums this past decade with half being between number one and three on the U.S. charts and Blurryface alone was 4x platinum. They also have nine number one singles, which places them at number six of artists with the most number one songs on the charts which placed them between the Foo Fighters and U2. Their latest release Scaled and Icy came out this past May.

In total, they played 21 songs but was actually more as a few songs were merged together. When it comes to groups to rise this past decade Twenty One Pilots may very well have the best stage production. Throughout the show they had their backing band on select songs. For those old enough to remember Pearl Jam when Eddie Vedder would pull crazy stunts like climbing up the stage and hanging onto lights there’s definitely some similarities with how Joseph performs.

Twenty One Pilots opened with “Good Day” and stood together with ski masks on before taking their positions. By song three, they were playing one of their biggest hits “Stressed Out.” Halfway through the show they did a campfire acoustic set which literally had the feeling of musicians playing around a campfire even in a near 6,000 seat venue. For this part of the show the instruments were bass, accordion, ukulele, djembe, and violin as the group and some of their backing band performed right in front of the audience.

Twenty One Pilots performed eight of their nine number ones with “The Hype” being left out. It is very common to see groups perform older songs for the encore but in this case “Shy Away,” a number one from their new album, was the second to last song and ended with “Trees” from their debut album.

When it comes to newer groups this is definitely the one to go see.

Setlist: