With new single ‘Umbrella Beach’ due for release here in the UK on May 17th, Owl City launched into this one first at the Shepherds Bush Empire, before then following it up with another track from the ‘Ocean Eyes’ studio album, ‘The Bird and the Worm’. It took a while for Adam Young to warm up the London crowd once taking to the stage, right from the word go his energy and passion for performing was highly apparent however and this was an excellent thing to see as he danced around the stage to his music.
With a guitarist, drummer, glockenspiel player, double bassist, violinist, and keyboardist all on this stage this therefore gave plenty of potential for an extremely full live sound, unfortunately however the levels weren’t perfect and this therefore meant that some of the instruments were unfortunately drowned out a little in the mix. Whilst there was a very crisp drum sound and the guitar and keyboards came through clearly, the glockenspiel in particular was quite hard to make out at times, and although the player very much looked to be enjoying himself; it would have been nice if his playing had been a little more audible. In addition to the inconsistent sound levels, more could also have been made of the lighting throughout the set; there was very minimal use of the lighting available at the Shepherds Bush Empire, and for the type of music that Owl City plays, a solid lighting show could definitely have been of benefit and increased the overall impact of the music.
With tracks played from 2007s ‘Of June’ EP as well as material from the albums ‘Maybe I’m Dreaming’ and ‘Ocean Eyes’, there was therefore a good mix of material both old and new, giving fans a chance to hear Owl City’s earlier sound as well as the more recent hits. The set seemed to fit together well, with the only real strange decision being that ‘Hello Seattle’ was played in the encore, with ‘Fireflies’ having been played about two thirds of the way through the set. ‘Hello Seattle’ has recently been released in the US and to a US crowd this therefore would have been a pretty reasonable choice of encore, as ‘Fireflies’ is currently the only single to have been released in the UK however, to have played ‘Fireflies’ as the final track would definitely have been a greater option. A nice touch could perhaps have been to play ‘Fireflies’ for a second time as this no doubt would have gone down a storm with the sold out London crowd.
The sound levels could have been improved and the crowd interaction could have been stronger, despite this however Owl City was still able to put on a pretty solid show in the sold out Shepherds Bush Empire and there were certain areas of the crowd that really did appear to be feeling the music. All in all it was a solid display of inoffensive electronic pop music, and even though there was room for improvement; there were a number of positives to be taken from the performance and the energy that was displayed on stage by a number of the performers.
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UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
