Odesza @ Merriweather Post Pavilion [DC/BAL] - 8/25/2022
Odesza and their trusty drumline (and their trusty fireworks) at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD (Photo ©2022 Mauricio Castro)
Pyrotechnics. Fireworks. Confetti. Lasers. Drums. Drumlines. Horns. A knight avenging his fallen comrades? It’s a very narrow tightrope threading the needle between spectacle and camp, and Odesza are closer than ever to providing a show that would fit right at home on the Vegas strip. Is that a good thing? That depends on what you’re looking for. What’s obvious is that they’re looking for the limit of what a touring EDM show can offer 20,000 adoring fans. And maybe, just maybe, they’ve hit that limit.
The duo of Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight, both of whom met at Western Washington University and started making music in 2012, released their latest album The Last Goodbye this summer, crafting an aural adventure that makes songs like “Sun Models” and “Say My Name,” both off their 2014 debut album In Return, seem quaint in comparison. And to make a show that would satisfy an amphitheater, they pulled out all the stops, over and over again. The ‘Odesza drumline’ has been featured in tasteful amounts in previous tours - maybe one or two songs would feature a drumline. This time around, they’re just as integral to the set as the duo themselves, with multiple appearances and costume changes throughout the show. Mills and Knight even joined in the action themselves, getting huge drums of their own to bang in sync with the drumline. Every song was accompanied by larger-than-life video treatments: asteroids exploding, a battlefield of fallen medieval soldiers, people suspended in cryochambers, glowing stained glass windows in a cathedral, a cyberpunk dystopian future patrolled by hovering guard robots…a pair of boxing gloves in a case? Well, they can’t all be visual hits.
Narratively, all of this makes no sense or has any common thread to speak of. But does this make for a show to talk about long after it’s over? Of course. Old favorites of theirs became ripe for fresh mashups, Daft Punk Alive 2007-style. They even brought out tunes from their more industrial-leaning side project, BRONSON. And the crowds danced their asses off through it all, so they’re still doing something right. For those that have seen the duo grow over the years, it can feel a bit off-putting how ‘arena-ready’ Odesza have conditioned themselves to become. But that’s the alluring trajectory of any artist fortunate enough to have as big a following as them. They’ll never be the same, and that’s okay. They’ve got enough pyrotechnics to keep you entertained anyway.
Odesza’s latest album The Last Goodbye is out now on Foreign Family Collective.
Opening for Odesza was Sylvan Esso, whose latest album No Rules Sandy (out now through Loma Vista Recordings) was released just 11 days before their Merriweather show.
