To see ODESZA is to experience an exuberant, joy-filled extravaganza.
ODESZA formed in 2012 and quickly gained attention for their wonderfully upbeat, summery-feeling electronic sound. When Glide first interviewed them in 2014, they were reveling at the ability to finally add visuals to their light show and had begun adding live instruments to the stage.
In the intervening years, Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight, the two minds behind ODESZA, have become festival headliners and been nominated for a Grammy. But nowhere is their genius more evident than in their show, which appears to play out a fever dream that two guys out of Bellingham, WA, might have once had: it’s a full-on dance party spectacular.
Their recent three-night set of sold-out shows at Seattle’s WaMu Theater lit up a young, exuberant audience, but more than that, though, was the full spectrum experience of the show on March 30th. From the opening notes of “Intro” and “A Moment Apart” (the eponymous lead-in to the band’s latest album), the performers and stage were constantly awash in light, whether bathed in fire-like glow or comfortingly awash in water of the clearest blue. Particularly exuberant were anthems such as “Late Night,” which had the crowd bouncing in near-unison to flashing lights exploding up, down, sideways, and everywhere else as though being driven by a (rhythmic) give year-old intent on lighting up everything. Nor was “Late Night” confined to lights; confetti exploded over the crowd partway through the song, taking an already thrilled crowd up yet another notch.
Lest lights and confetti not be enough, ODESZA added to the intensity with pyrotechnics, which blasted at the back of the stage at times hot enough to be felt clearly by this author. Similarly, blasts of steam and smoke lit the stage, adding texture to the myriad lights throughout. Six live drummers regularly added the crisp sound of tight snares to the music, and trumpet, trombone and guitar made appearances alongside guest vocalists (on songs such as the sing-along “Say My Name”), all adding gorgeous acoustic texture on top of the incessant, bone-rattlingly wonderful bass and drums.
