Commentary and photography by Judy Won

After these past few days, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t know which is louder, the speaker system at the LC Pavilion, or the thousands of screaming girls while Brendon Urie took the stage for the night.

The night began with Boston’s own Magic Man.  This up and coming melodic, indie pop band is fairly new to the scene, first forming just 4 years ago with only 2 members.  I first heard of Magic Man via my roommates who suggested that I listen to their hit “Paris”, which is quite the catchy hit indeed.  In September of 2013, they embarked on a fully fledged tour with a band that happens to be on this very tour, Walk The Moon.  Since then, they’ve slowly been getting bigger, recently releasing their debut album Before the Waves.

Front Man Alex Caplot did. not. stop. moving.  I use those periods as an emphasis to hopefully stress how much energy that boy had in his body.  Caplow was constantly jumping up and down, dancing all over the stage as fellow band mates followed, showing their moves on the “dance floor”.  The band did a very good job with being active with the crowd, dancing along with them as if a giant, steel barricade wasn’t in-between them.  Their 7 song long setlist consisted with Waves, along with Catherine, Texas, and ending their set with Paris.

The second band on the bill for tonight’s show was Ohio’s very own, Cincinnati to be exact, was Walk The Moon.  While this band is from Cincinnati, I’ve never had the chance to see them due to the fact that they’re always so busy touring, and whenever they happen to come into town, I’m always out of town.  Being able to see Walk The Moon after years of listening to them before Anna Sun got plastered all over Youtube was quite the treat for me.

This band has been around since 2008, still fairly new to the scene, naming themselves after The Police’s song “Walking on the Moon”.  They’re a very energetic, up-beat quartet, swaying the crowd with their infectious lyrics and melodic choruses.  They opened with their catchy, popular song “Tightrope” and played an additional 8 songs including “Jenny”, “Shiver Shiver”, “I Can Lift a Car”, and while they were playing that song front man Nicholas Petricca had the crowd motioning an upward lift, as if they were moving a car.  They finally closed out their show with their ever-so-popular hit “Anna Sun” which definitely had everyone in the crowd, young and old, up on their feet.

As the night hit half past 9, the members of Panic At The Disco slowly emerged from the darkness known as the LC Pavilion.  As each member emerged into eye site view of the thousands of fans in the crowd, the screaming and cheering grew louder and louder, until I eventually had to plug my ears in addition to wearing ear plugs.   They suavely walked to their respective areas of the stage and began playing “Vegas Lights” off of their most recent album Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!  One thing I would like to mention is that I’ve seen Panic a few times before and they honestly put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen for a plethora of reasons.

After being  band for a decade now, you’ve gone through the ups and down of being a famous band, traveling the world and knowing what to do and not to do during a performance.  Boy those years have paid off because Panic hands down puts on one of the best shows you can see.  They are definitely one of those bands you don’t have to worry about playing mostly songs off of just their new album, but rather all of them.  They do a fantastic job switching up the beat in the sense that every song played was off of a different album, and no two songs in a row were off of the same album.  After they opened with “Vegas Lights” they transitioned into “Time to Dance”, a hit off of their first(and personally my favorite album), A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out.  Lead singer Brendon Urie proved that his voice is worth the thousands of adorning fans they play for every single night.  His stage presence was filled with energy  and was very personable with the crowd. The band then played The Ballad of Mona Lisa off of 2011’s Vices & Virtues.  Shortly after the song ended, the crowd went into a wild uproar, cheering louder than ever.  At that point I was flipping through the photos on my camera, so when I looked back up to the stage, I noticed something was missing; Brendon Urie’s shirt to be exact.

Throughout the night Urie’s falsetto’s pierced my ears with heavenly bliss.  Throughout the night they played songs off of every album, feeding everyone’s Panic hunger, but threw a little twist half way through their set.  They decided to cover Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”.  Usually whenever anyone tries to cover a Queen song, they fail miserably due to how untouchable Freddy Mercury’s voice is, but Urie did a pretty damn good job covering that song.  Urie’s vocals were matched to the beautiful accompaniment of instruments from the rest of Panic.  As the night continued, Urie reached out into the crowds open arms, holding their hands and giving out high fives.  They played songs like “Girls/Girls/Boys”, “New Perspective”, “Nine in the Afternoon”, “Nicotine”, and ended with “This is Gospel” on top of “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”.

My two-cents to anyone reading this, if you’re ever in an area that’s hosting any of the 3 bands stated above, I highly recommend you drop a little cash to see an amazing show.