Mad Cool turned on a dime tonight (July 10). Spain sealed their triumph over Belgium in the World Cup midway through Kings of Leon’s set on the main stage, leading the Followills to precede ‘Use Somebody’ with ecstatic visuals declaring “ESPAÑA HA GANADO!” (“Spain won!”). A state of mass euphoria ensued, with punters spontaneously breaking out into a chant of ‘Seven Nation Army’. The Kings were already cruising towards festival victory, but this kicked them into hyperspace.
That excitement decidedly spills over into Twenty One Pilots’ bravura headline show on the same stage immediately afterwards, as the Ohio alt-rock innovators close the night with a set that packs in pyro, fireworks and death-defying stunts. Not that they really need the boost: Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun have essentially taken over Iberdrola Music all day, their merch-clad fans – aka the Skeleton Clique – flooding the site in such vast numbers that it felt like you were walking among a religious cult.
One lad wandered into the Pixies crowd earlier with his neck painted black, a reference to Blurryface, a figure at the heart of the band’s complex lore. Or maybe he just needed a good shower on day three of the festival. In any case, when Joseph roars, “We’re gonna give you everything we’ve got tonight!”, it’s far from boilerplate festival crowd work – it’s a statement of intent and possibly the Pilots’ entire raison d’etre.
The duo take absolutely no chances, stuffing their small hours set (they come on at half midnight) with one hook after another. There’s even a section where they lead a singalong of Cher’s ‘Believe’ and, yes, ‘Seven Nation Army’ – the latter introduced by a video of Jack White giving them his blessing. “Congratulations on your win tonight,” Joseph yells, prompting an ear-splitting roar from the audience.
This crowd-pleasing approach says a lot about the group. For all that their music is steeped in enough narrative to fill several hundred branches of Games Workshop, as the lyrics concern a character named Clancy battling a bunch of bad bastards called the Bishops, this is also just an epic arena show that anyone can appreciate.
You don’t need to be a card-carrying member of the Skeleton Clique, for example, to appreciate the festival-ready chant of ‘heavydirtysoul’, or the moment when Dun climbs a huge ladder to batter the drum kit atop a precipitous tower of scaffolding. Not to be outdone, Joseph scales the viewing platform opposite the stage, standing on its edge as he sing-songs through the cod-reggae of ‘Ride’. After that daredevil Russian couple made headlines with their Empire State Building stunt earlier this month, you half expect him to get down on one knee and propose to someone up there.
So, yes, this is a nail-biter of a set, which begins and ends with Joseph standing on a disc that’s being held up by fans in the front few rows. For any other band, that would be the most noteworthy part of the night; for these guys, it’s just another dizzying combination play. One-nil to Twenty One Pilots.
Twenty One Pilots played:
‘Overcompensate’
‘The Contract’
‘Center Mass’
‘Shy Away’
‘Heathens’
‘Next Semester’
‘One Way’ (with Milky Chance’s ‘Stolen Dance’ in the bridge)
‘Tear in My Heart’
‘Jumpsuit’ (with first verse and chorus of ‘City Walls’ in the bridge)
‘Nico and the Niners’
‘Heavydirtysoul’
‘Drum Show’
‘RAWFEAR’
‘Drag Path’
‘Doubt’
‘Ride’
‘Tally’ (with a snippet of Cher’s ‘Believe’ in the bridge)
‘Seven Nation Army’
‘Stressed Out’
‘Trees’
NME is the official media partner of Mad Cool
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