Panic! At The Disco – Manchester Arena – 30/03/19
Since the release of their sixth studio album last summer Panic! At The Disco have rocketed into the stratosphere with the overwhelming success of ‘Pray For The Wicked’, and blew us away with an incredible headline set at Reading & Leeds Festival leaving us mind blown. Having followed up by announcing an arena tour, tickets went like gold dust, but luckily for the thousands gathered in Manchester arena, P!ATD are finally back and ready to go…
As frontman Brendon Urie is like no other, the stage set up for this show had to be as unique as possible. A giant triangular logo stage offsets the main stage in the Arena for the frontman himself surrounded by his fans. His backing band rise from below the stage in a mist of blue lights before the familiar start to ‘Fuck A (Silver Lining)’ plays out in darkness. Within seconds, Brendon springs into the air from beneath the stage, and as he hits the floor the arena blows into the chorus whilst streamers fly through the sky. What a way to kick off the show!
The set is rammed from start to finish with all of P!ATD’s hits as the band sway from album to album giving us a taste of all of their incredible songs over the past 15 years. The bouncy ‘Ready to Go’ is thrown in early before ‘Don’t threaten Me With A Good Time’ has the frontman busting out his slick moves on stage not for the first or last time this evening.
Each song has clearly been well thought through from a performance perspective as track by track something unique happens. From beautiful visuals & pyro to pianos popping up left right and centre, there’s something to keep everyone on their toes.
A beautiful cover of Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ finds Mr Panic! At The Disco himself floating through the sky on a tiny platform with his piano which looks incredible as the arena lights up around him with lights from the audience.
It’s not the only cover of the night however, a banging cover of ‘The Greatest Show’ goes down a treat, and as expected they tear through Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which they recorded for the ‘Suicide Squad’ film. For any band to have the balls to cover Queen to start with is one thing, but to follow it up by making it look incredibly easy is a credit to the talent of this band.
‘Girls/Girls/Boys’ has the frontman wandering around his triangular stage picking up colourful pride flags being thrown at him from all directions, clearly struggling to hang them all from himself whilst working his way through the track drowning in colour.
‘Emperors New Clothes’ is the chosen final track of the set (pre encore of course!) and fire blasts from the stage for the hellish track, which seemingly impossibly raises the bar once again.
An encore of our favourite ‘Saturday Night’, and emo anthem ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’ has the arena explode back into life, before ‘Victorious’ closes out the night with a real party beneath the falling confetti.
Words cannot do justice about how Panic! At The Disco have really upped their game and it’s clear they have put their heart and soul into making each night of the tour so incredibly special for not only the fans, but themselves too. Congratulations Mr Urie, you are once again victorious.
Check out the full set of live photos from their Manchester show here!
Review & Photography: © Danny Peart Photography 2019
