Live Review: Glass Animals – The O2, London 07/11/2024
Taking over London’s O2 Arena, Glass Animals delivered an out-of-this-world performance that will linger in fans’ memories long after the last note has faded.
It’s been a cosmic year for Glass Animals. Following the release of their latest album ‘I Love You So F***ing Much’ in July, the Oxford outfit brought their infectious energy to London on Thursday night, wrapping up the UK/European leg of their ‘Tour of Earth’ with a sensational set that will surely feature as ‘gig of the year’ for many of the 20,000 fans attending. It’s no easy feat to keep an audience mesmerised from start to finish in the age of short attention spans (thanks social media), but ‘Human Musical Group Sensations Glass Animals’ – as they were known on the evening – lived up to their name and blitzed through a discography-spanning set that was truly out of this world.
Before they took to the stage, the crowd were warmed up by a rousing set from The Big Moon. As the opening keys to ‘It’s Easy Then’ rang out, fans were guided along a gentle build-up of rolling drums and layered vocal harmonies, underlined by the song’s easy-going nature which made you feel like you were being welcomed into a musical embrace. Morphing into the driving beats of ‘Don’t Think’, it was hard to resist swaying along as the band members joyously jammed with each other onstage. ‘Wide Eyes’ brought mellifluous vocals flecked with glittering electronics for an arena-filling indie-rock track, before the euphoric ‘Daydreaming’ evoked scenes of summer with a feel-good breeziness that you cannot help but beam along to. Though ‘2 Lines’ was laden with nostalgia and brought a slightly more wistful tone as vocalist Juliette Jackson crooned ‘nothing’s changed / but nothing feels the same’, the mood was quickly picked back up with a jubilant cover of Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise You’ when the band made their “first formal invitation tonight to dance with us”. The jubilant energy carried through to finale ‘Your Light’, an affirming and carefree track which brought a palpable sense of joy and left fans eager for the fun to continue.
Thankfully, fans did not have to wait too long before the bombastic opening (soundtracked appropriately to ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’) gave way to the irresistible grooves of ‘Life Itself’, accompanied by the equally hypnotic charisma of frontman Dave Bayley stomping and spinning around the stage. A spaceship set-up provided the backdrop for the band, but that was far from the only otherworldly aspect of the set as green lasers beamed along to the hypnotic bass of ‘Wonderful Nothing’ for an unapologetically dark and mysterious shimmy. The accelerating beats of ‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast’ threatened to take off with unbridled intensity but the searing intensity of ‘A Tear in Space (Airlock)’ quickly grounded fans again as Dave Bayley’s stratospheric falsetto pierced to your core with emotion and left your spine tingling.
Pausing for a moment of reflection, Bayley muses that this show feels like a full circle moment for the band, as they first began making music not too far away in South East London, before the rapturous ‘Creatures in Heaven’ felt like the perfect follow-on with its yearning lyricism and soaring vocals. ‘Youth’ brought a triumphant singalong, particularly for older fans of the band, before the stadium lit up with thousands of phone flashlights for the tender ‘Lost in the Ocean’. A surprised Bayley was barely able to contain his exclamations of “oh my god”, questioning “what is going on?” before opting to “sing before I get emotional” – which simply goes to show the mutual appreciation between the band and their fans, creating a refreshing moment of genuine community and unity in an age where most of us feel separated by screens and dehumanising technology. The sweltering ‘Gooey’ was performed in the middle of the crowd, which garnered some loud singalongs that made Bayley chuckle and praise, “nice enthusiasm”, before ‘Show Pony’ took over with aching guitar lines and wry lyrics that saw a handful of inflatable cows being waved side-to-side by fans. This encapsulated the unique atmosphere created by the world of Glass Animals, where both musicians and fans are unashamedly themselves, embracing all their uniqueness and characteristics in full – and perhaps that’s why they have managed to generate such a cult following with their musical escapism.
Grungy riffs and distortion in ‘Take a Slice’ brought a moment of stadium rock with an utterly hedonistic guitar solo that was almost too hot to handle, before the jaunty ‘Pork Soda’ took you to a dazzling high for the end of the main set with wailing sirens, pineapple throwing, and crowdsurfing aliens. It was weird and wonderful in all the right ways, but the show would not have been complete without the explosive ‘Tokyo Drifting’ and the song that kicked it all off for the band, ‘Heat Waves’, giving fans one final dance along and a night they will not forget.
Words by Athena Kam
Photography by Abigail Shii
