Concert Review: Bastille Wild World Tour

Bastille: Wild World Tour

By Bethany Loscher

On May 3rd, 2017 the British indie-pop band, Bastille, brought their Wild World Tour to the Seven Flags Event Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Bastille consists of four main members: Dan Smith, lead vocalist; Kyle Simmons, keyboardist; Will Farquarson, bassist; and drummer, Chris “Woody” Wood. With doors opening at 6 p.m., people were already lining up outside before 5 in the evening.

Bastille’s Wild World Tour is promoting their latest album, Wild World Communications (WWCOMMS) an album about the media and politics. These themes were apparent through some of their more popular songs from the album they performed. “The Currents” written by Dan Smith, had a heavy focus on opinions in media outlets and politics. With lyrics such as “I can’t believe the scary points you make,” “I can’t quite believe my ears,” and “Won’t you stop firing up the crazies?” During this particular song, on the screen behind the band, there were an excessive amount of news stories from different media outlets. And while obviously staged news stories made for these particular visuals, the message of their song still gets across. It was refreshing to have a song about real issues and real topics of today.

Another song, also written by Smith, “Warmth," holds a particular message about finding comfort in those around you when the news upsets you, or when certain things in the world aren’t quite making sense. The song is about having an “honest reaction” to the things happening in the media around you. This is also the song where they found their album name, and tour name, with the lyrics “Hold me in this wild, wild world” hence, the Wild World Tour. “Fake It”, is yet another hard-hitting political song written by Dan Smith. It’s important to note that while Bastille was performing this song, in the background there was a politician reading along to the words of the song. The song and visuals seemed to be pointing to the politics of today, and how it seems most politicians are faking it; faking their confidence, faking their decisions, and faking the idea that they know what they’re doing, but perhaps if they fake it well enough they’ll make it to the end and succeed.

“Good Grief” is one of Bastille’s more popular hits from this album, written by Smith yet again. The song holds a catchy vibe but lyrically is sad. There’s a touch of political theme still apparent with the lyrics “watching through my fingers” repeated and also the lyrics “Oh, God, I can’t believe this is happening”. Not only could this pertain to the debates for the 2016 election going on in America, but also with Bastille being a British band it referred to Brexit.

The most popular song from this album, “Send Them Off!” was their first single pulled from the album that was played on radio stations. This song doesn’t deal as much with media and politics, but rather it seems to be about a relationship that deals with jealousy. Something different from the rest of their album, not only lyrically, but musically too with a brass ensemble playing throughout the piece. To close their show, Bastille played the hit that practically took them to where they are today. A song written by Dan Smith, that played on radio stations repeatedly for most of 2014. “Pompeii,” another song with such an upbeat feel, that you almost don’t realize the lyrics are quite sad. It was a nostalgic song to hear Bastille play after it quickly put them at the top of multiple charts in 2014.

The energy of this specific concert was through the roof. The whole venue was general admission; there were no chairs, only the floor for people to stand. The crowd was constantly jumping, dancing, clapping, and singing along to the music. Bastille brought interesting visuals to their performance. The night was basically hosted by a politician through the screen that was behind the band; he was on the screen from the moment people began to enter the building, he presented the opening act (Mondo Cozmo), and he presented Bastille. Between bands, it would show him practicing lines for a speech, which was really just lyrics from Bastille’s music. He also appeared quite often throughout the show, singing lyrics behind Bastille during their song “Fake It”. This politician plays a role in Bastille’s music video for “Fake It” also and is the head of their WWCOMMS world they’ve created. While Bastille momentarily left the stage, the politician took over the screen, yelling about how perfect he was and how everything else was “Fake News” an obvious parody of President Trump. Their whole set was surrounded by this world of WWCOMMS, which is supposed to be their kind of shout-out to the media and politics.

Visuals were a huge part of their performance. A couple of times lead vocalist, Dan Smith, would talk about the visuals we would see before a certain performance and how it tied in. Dan didn’t want the show to just be about them but rather wanted the visuals to play an important role. With the visuals, the performance, the vocals, and the energy of the crowd all combined, the concert was intense, exciting, and (as the tour name says) wild. They’ve come a long way from when I first saw them perform in September of 2014, where there were absolutely no visuals at all and barely any use of other instruments besides keyboard and drums. While their vocals were still incredible in 2014, they seem to be even better now almost three years later.

The audience as a whole was amazing, there was never a time when we weren’t involved in the performance whether it was the constant singing of lyrics, jumping up and down, clapping to the beat, or waving flashlights back and forth during the slower songs. The audience was engaged, and the band members constantly made sure of it, which is something that I appreciated. When the audience is involved and engaged, singing along to every word and clapping along to every beat, it makes the concert experience even more memorable. Dan walked through the crowd multiple times while singing, and a couple of times performed on a small stage in the middle of the audience so those further back had the chance to see him perform up close.

There’s something about live music that always seems to be better than the studio versions; whether it’s being able to see the songs actually performed and seeing the emotions the artists are playing with, or whether it’s the rawness of it, there’s just something about it that makes you want to remember how it sounds in that moment forever.

Overall, this concert was a positive, fun, and exciting experience. The performance given by Bastille was powerful in many ways, especially with the help of visuals. Musically, they were absolutely incredible, constantly jumping and moving – never missing a beat. I would relive the two-and-a-half-hour drive, waiting in cold weather for over an hour, and the sweat I experienced because of the constant jumping and dancing all over to see Bastille perform again; even if it does mean surviving on four hours of sleep the next day and walking with sore calves.