02/13/2020
Last night we attended our first Walk Off the Earth show, a band I hardly know, but they posted a video a few years ago I just couldn't get enough of (search for "Walk Off Feliz Navidad" on YouTube). So when I saw tickets go on sale in town, with great seats available, I jumped on 'em.
This turned out to be a highly entertaining band, perhaps the ultimate 21st century band so far. By that I mean
1) The music is very listenable and as we could tell by the crowd, appeals to literally all ages. Vastly white, of course, but I'm well used to that.
2) The performance was quite theatrical, with multimedia visuals, choreograped dancing, themed costumes, and audience interaction like pre- and during-show voting on what song we wanted to hear.
3) All the musicans were proficient on multiple instruments. My wife pegged it when she said it seemed like they were all kids who went to music school together and formed a band.
4) The main photo here illustrates points 2 and 3... they go from playing a rig of multiple objects used as percussion to doing a four-part kazoo solo in unison while bobbing their heads in time.
5) Even without knowing many of their songs, there's still plenty of familiarity because they cover a lot of songs from my generation... because their generation is of the downloading and streaming age when all of music history is readily available.
6) But it's sort of Short Attention Span theatre because their medleys jump quickly from one song to another. They did a Beatles medley that probably covered 20 songs in 5 minutes.
They're Big Fun. I don't know if I'll end up seeing them 20 more times or never again, but I had a great time either way.
