Live music review: Glass Animals played Moody Amphitheater September 12
On Sunday, September 12 UK electro-pop act, Glass Animals played Austin’s shiny, new Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park. While it wasn’t the first performance The Cosmic Clash has covered at the venue (Gary Clark Jr opening weekend), it was the first time at the venue for this writer. Even our photographer, Ryan Vestil has been a regular at the venue as he was hired to be their house photographer before the season began.
Nonetheless, we arrived early to the venue in order to scope out the footprint, amenities and views of the capitol (which were impressive). The venue’s atypical layout for a modern amphitheater inside the revamped park provides it’s own startling vistas and contours amid the festivities pre-concert, lent a whole new feel to the park. If you’d been to Fun Fun Fun Fest at Waterloo back in the day, you wouldn’t recognize the park now.
Eventually we found our spot on the Tito’s Patio Deck overlooking the venue, stage right while we waited along with a sold-out crowd for the UK’s electro-pop sensations, Glass Animals to take the stage adorned with a white, grid-like covering that went perfectly with GA’s stage pieces meant to reflect their 8-bit electronic music connection complete with images of Windows 98-era screens and video games.
While led vocalist and bandleader, Dave Bayley might be described as an indie rocker, to us he looked like the ultimate computer geek, resplendent in a brightly colored, oversized sorority jersey with high-rise jeans short enough to show the whites of his socks underneath his trainers as if he were waiting for a flood. Perhaps the coolest of the music nerds? He just might be.
Bayley also has the non-stop frenetic energy of Mick Jagger, Matt Shultz (Cage the Elephant) and Janis all rolled into one nerdy/cool performer. He was all over the stage, aping on the set piece diving board in front of him one moment, rocking with a guitar in front of his drummer in the next. He seems difficult to keep up with, like that exhausting friend who’s always on the go.
By the time the band got to radio hit, “I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)” the crowd went wild along with Bayley and the rest of the band. In fact, the audience stood the majority of the performance despite seating up to the photo pit guard rail. Watching the crowd freak out in orderly rows from our overhead vantage point, was surreal.
We also heard from a friend on Twitter who attended the show. As an extrovert who loves to dance, the show was tailor-made for this local Austinite…
I can’t even try to explain how vital to me this show was – as an extrovert, at my first large group activity, in a safe as possible space, watching a live show, people singing along, laughing and bonding with strangers around me…I held back tears at multiple moments in the show
— Nicole Forbes 🤖💃🏼 (@livehappy8) September 13, 2021
All photos by Ryan Vestil
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