Twenty One Pilots made their 24th stop of the Emotional Roadshow Tour in OKC at the Zoo Amphitheater Saturday, July 10. It was a hot, sunny day with a high in the 90s and a slight breeze, the sun was not very forgiving especially when you are waiting in a line about two miles long with no water. Gates opened at 5:30 p.m. and I was relieved to finally get in the shade and hopefully grab some water that was $4 and I didn’t even get to keep the bottle. By this point the sun is going down, the smell of beer and funnel cake is battling the distant smell of the weed someone upwind was smoking, and the band Chef’s Special opened up the concert at 7 p.m. and played a couple songs as well as another band I didn’t catch the name of. Josh Dun’s drum set created by SJC was set up on stage along with Tyler Joseph’s piano; however, Tyler would switch between piano, ukulele, and bass guitar. Twenty One Pilots was running behind several minute but opened things up with a spectacular light show that gave you the sense and feeling that this show was officially starting and that that night would be remembered.
Twenty One Pilots opened the show with their single "Fairly Local" wearing red suits and red ski masks. "Fairly Local" is a single from the 2015 album Blurryface, if you’ve listened to other Twenty One Pilots music then you know that a lot of their stuff is really deep, lyrically; "Fairly Local" is a different story. This song really opens up the album perfectly; this song is about Tyler refusing to let people label him as “evil to the core” and “emotional”. Tyler opens the song singing, “I’m fairly local. I’ve been around./ I’ve seen the streets you’re walking down.” Opening the song as a sort of narrator and expert of what is going on; he’s been there before. All the reverb and synthesizer exit the scene giving Tyler a more personal and emotional stage with the audience. At this point Tyler begins to address his personal insecurities singing, “I’m evil to the core. / What I shouldn’t do I will. / They say I’m emotional. / What I want to save I’ll kill.” Tyler is talking about the fact that he is “fairly local” with his thoughts of inadequacy and depression, he describes how he’s lost control of his thoughts, “What I want to save I’ll kill”. At the end of the verse he describes how he can’t escape, “Tomorrow I’ll keep a beat./ And repeat yesterday’s dance.” Later in the song Tyler claims, “Yo, this song will never be on the radio” possibly suggesting that few will like it or appeal to it, he answers one line later saying “It’s the few, the proud, the emotional.” this seems to suggest this song is for those fighting the same fight as him, a sort of battle cry. In the second verse the tables turn, “I’m not evil to the core. / What I shouldn’t do I will fight. / I know I’m emotional. / What I want to save I will try.” Tyler has accepted that he is emotional and accepts who he is and rallies behind that, fighting back. He is now ready to fight off those who label him, “I know who I truly am./ I truly do have a chance.” We come to the second bridge except now Tyler’s voice is very low giving a sense that Tyler has embraced this darkness and has accepted that he is emotional. The song at this point starts to rise out of this darkness and Tyler gains strength from this experience, picking himself up and going the way he thinks is best and not listening to those who want to pull him down. The song ends by repeating the chorus which seems to unify the audience to start a revolution.
It’s going on 9:30 p.m. now, the sun has now set and if you look up the stars are out and shining. Tyler has pulled out a bass guitar and the song Ride the 3rd song on the same album Blurryface and one of my personal favorites has started. Tyler and Josh swapped outfits before then and are now wearing white tank tops and beanies. The song opens with Tyler getting vulnerable, “I just wanna stay in the sun where I find… Pieces of peace in the sun’s peace of mind…” Tyler wants to live a life of luxury and pleasure however in between both lines he establishes that it isn’t easy to get to that point but that it’s fun to fantasize about luxury. In the next verse he talks about how he thinks about the end, “Yeah, I think about the end just way too much / . . . / All my enemies who wouldn’t wish who I was.” the end being either the end of his career/life or even death. In the chorus “... I’m falling so I’m taking my time on my ride” he talks about how he’s aging [falling] and so he acknowledges that if he’s going to die at the end of the ride he might as well have fun and live life to the fullest. The following verse becomes a philosophical mess as Tyler asks the audience if they are willing to sacrifice their lives for others. “I’d die for you/ That’s easy to say/ We have a list of people that we would take/ A bullet for them/ A bullet for you/ A bullet for everybody in this room” establishing that everybody talks a big game but when it comes time to bite the [bullet] (pun intended) people get quiet. Tyler goes on to talk about this saying that he would have to wait till the moment comes to know if he would sacrifice his life. In the bridge he says “I’ve been thinking too much (help me)” in a way giving a distress call asking for someone to help tackle the big questions about life or rather to put them to bed because he’s over thinking life. The rest of the song illustrates this point and the song ends there.
It is now 10:30 p.m. and I am exhausted from all the screaming and jumping, a great time to play the song Car Radio which is not on the album Blurryface but on the duo’s 2013 album Vessel. This song actually has no deep lyrical meaning per se on the surface like most of his songs you have to dig deep into the mind of Tyler. I find this song to be Tyler running out of distractions and being forced to deal with emotions and his thoughts. The song really points to the battle being between him and silence. To me it seems to be like he’s somewhat schizophrenic, he’s jumping between dealing with his thoughts to jumping back to replacing his car radio, “There are things we can do/ But from the things that work there are only two/ And from the two that we choose to do/Peace will win and fear will lose/It is faith and there's sleep/We need to pick one please because/Faith is to be awake/And to be awake is for us to think/And for us to think is to be alive/And I will try with every rhyme/To come across like I am dying/To let you know you need to try to think/I have these thoughts, so often I ought/To replace that slot with what I once bought/'Cause somebody stole my car radio/And now I just sit in silence/…” Tyler jumps between dealing with his thoughts and emotion and his car radio trying to change the subject with a sleight of hand movement. He finally collapses at the bridge where he sits in silence, embracing his thoughts and the silence. The song ends with a repeat of the opening verse, symbolizing to me, an impasse between Tyler and his mind.
The night ended for me after Car Radio, there was an encore but I wanted to leave because not only was I still sick but I wanted to be able to get out of the Zoo Amphitheater without getting trampled. It was a long walk back to the Science Museum of Oklahoma and I was tired when I got home but overall the evening was great and I would do it all over again to see Twenty One Pilots.
