By Cameron Lee
August 5, 2024
Photo: Wendy Hernandez
Coming off an enormously successful 2020 album, Dreamland, Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley found himself in an existential crisis. The album was released during the height of the pandemic and, while it was hardly their first notable project, it was by far their most decorated. “Heat Waves” spent a record-breaking 91 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, surpassing The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights.” It also earned them a nod for Best New Artist at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, which Bayley was not able to attend due to Covid. Yet, while the band’s popularity skyrocketed in the summer of 2020, Bayley felt detached, not able to truly connect with friends and family, even the many fans on their mostly sold-out 2021-22 Dreamland Tour.
“It was a beautiful rollercoaster ride that dumped us out the other end,” Bayley told Rolling Stone in an interview in April. “I felt like I was spectating the whole time.”
In April of 2023, he spent two weeks in a hilltop AirBnB in Los Angeles writing songs for the Oxford, England band’s fourth studio album, I Love You So F***ing Much. This latest effort is a sci-fi love album, influenced by Bayley’s adoration for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a multimedia story franchise created by Douglas Adams, which follows the misadventures of the last surviving human, following the demolition of Earth. Bayley described his two weeks in that hilltop house writing songs for the album as if he was “in space, looking down.” He utilizes vintage ‘60s and ‘70s synthesizers that were all meant to “sound like the future.” The album’s otherworldly panorama of sounds and rhythms pairs well with Bayley’s love notes capturing the vastness of the universe and need for human connection.
On Sunday night in Charlotte, Bayley got to see his spectators up close for an intimate pre-tour show leading up to their 40-plus date world tour. The show was quietly announced just a week ago and quickly sold out the 700-capacity venue, The Underground.
Shortly past 8:30 p.m., Glass Animals stepped onto the stage with Bayley simply stating, “This is gonna be f*cking fun,” before jumping right into “whatthehellishappening?” from their latest album. The evening featured 18 songs, with the majority from I Love You So F***ing Much, and one very memorable performance of “Gooey” (on top of the bar), a crowd favorite for early Glass Animals fans from their 2014 debut, Zaba.
It was a cosmic rock ‘n’ roll dance party that felt like an EDM show at times with strobing multi-colored lights. Bayley was rarely still; he jumped, danced, twirled, and gestured throughout the 90-minute set, sometimes while playing his guitar. Crunchy synths and bass rumbled with flashing green lights for the haunting hip-hop-infused “Wonderful Nothing,” and the crowd was bathed in a sea of red for the sentimental, “Show Pony.” Accompanied by his longtime bandmates Drew MacFarlane (guitar, keyboards), Edmund Irwin-Singer (bass, keyboards), and Joe Seaward (drums), the band captured the spacey, ethereal sounds of I Love You So F***ing Much live.
With the crowd jumping up and down for songs like “A Tear in Space (Airlock)” and then slowly swaying to the ‘60s soul-inspired “Lost in the Ocean,” Bayley and company constructed a setlist that encapsulated their eclectic catalog well. Though “Gooey” remained the only song in the set from their debut album, early fans were still delighted when Bayley broke out a pineapple for “Pork Soda,” which he tossed to a fan in the front row. A signature prop in their sets inspired by the lyrics “pineapples are in my head,” and fans who used to bring actual pineapples to their live shows (they were subsequently banned from Reading & Leeds Festival in England in 2017).
Thanking the crowd in unison for the customary pre-encore exit, the band returned with another from 2016’s How to Be a Human Being, “The Other Side Of Paradise.” They then went into the thumping track, “Tokyo Drifting,” a popular song from 2020’s Dreamland, which features Denzel Curry on the album version.
He stepped right down in front of the crowd to introduce the final song of the night, “Heat Waves,” which was released at a time when Bayley wasn’t able to connect as closely with his adoring fans. Pointing and making eye contact with many, he serenaded the audience, before aiming the mic in the direction of the crowd for one final sing-along.
While the theme of Glass Animals’ latest album was motivated by Bayley’s separation from human connection in the vast universe we occupy, the band will have the opportunity to properly revel in their success and be closer to their fans, although they are playing slightly larger venues this time around.
Setlist:
“whatthehellishappening?”
“Life Itself”
“Wonderful Nothing”
“Space Ghost Coast to Coast”
“Take a Slice”
“Show Pony”
“A Tear in Space (Airlock)”
“Creatures in Heaven”
“Youth” ”
“Lost in the Ocean”
“Gooey”
“How I Learned to Love the Bomb”
“White Roses”
“On the Run”
“Pork Soda”
Encore:
“The Other Side of Paradise”
“Tokyo Drifting”
“Heat Waves”
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Check out the full schedule of dates for Glass Animals’ 2024 tour.
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