Brendon Urie Is An Awful Performer

for the second time in my unfortunate life I've seen Brendon Urie try and fail at singing live.

and, okay, 4 years ago he wasn't THAT bad. I didn't hate every song off PFTW and the concert actually had a lot of old Panic spersed in. It wasn't terrible.

the concert I saw last night was.... awful. He came onstage looking hungover, half shaven, and clearly without having warmed up his voice. He struggled for the first few songs, singing off key and failing at hitting misplaced falsetto notes. He didn't speak to the crowd once. The transitions between songs were confusing and unrelated to any of the music being played.

And then he played Viva Las Vengeance. Front to back. Now, I hadn't heard any of the songs from that album. I had successfully avoided all of it. And for good reason.

This was so boring. So monotonous. That I sat down during the entire album and texted my friend until it stopped. Brendon's ability to make every song sound the exact same, and to sing every song with the same flat tone, is truly amazing. He is so average, so mediocre, that even writing this about him is a waste of my time.

My mom even said afterwards that she felt like he didn't want the crowd to be there, because he didn't interact with the crowd at all and basically only stopped to talk once, in which he pretty much said: "Wow! The crowd is so loud! I hope you don't mind that I'm drinking a beer!" Which. What if we do mind? It seems kind of rude to charge $100+ per ticket, only to come onstage in jeans and a tank top and get drunk.

But I digress. The song list sucked, the new album is forgettable, Brendon failed to hit so many notes that I lost count. The only good part of the concert was seeing the openers.

MARINA is an especially amazing vocalist, and she managed to pull it together and give a good show despite having IEM problems and not being able to hear anything during her first song. She looked stunning, and her outfit was beautiful.

The other opener, Jake Wesley Rogers, I'd never heard of. Still, they put on an amazing show, had a far better outfit than Brendon, and said more meaningful things to the crowd during their 30 minute set than Brendon did in an entire 2 hours. Also they sang Welcome To The Black Parade and that was fun.

Another thing I want to note is that the vast majority of the crowd was well over 18. Basically every young kid there was with a parent who was a fan. This may not seem like a problem, but what it says to me is that Panic is no longer drawing in new fans, young crowds. I don't think that's surprising at all to be honest. But in comparison to bands like My Chemical Romance— who, over the years, have always had a steady influx of fans ages 10-14— this may just mean that the cycle of Panic fans is coming to an end.