James Bay is one of my favourite artists at the moment, so I have been looking forward to seeing him live or a while now since I have missed his previous visits to Vancouver. Going to see my favourite artists live is always one of my favourite things to do because I get to experience their music on a whole new level rather than just hearing them through my headphones. James has released two full albums, both quite different from each other. His first album, Chaos and the Calm is a much more subdued and calm album, with more acoustic pieces while his second, Electric light, has a little more production behind it and has more upbeat songs. When he was performing, it was easy to tell which song came from which album as he switched between electric and acoustic guitars, and as a guitar lover, it was so great to get to experience his guitar playing live because I never knew he was so talented. He had some really guitar moments in there on top of his incredible singing. I wouldn’t say I was surprised that he was so amazing on the guitar, but I wasn’t expecting it because from listening to his albums on my own, I never realized a lot of his songs were so guitar-heavy. James’s band was also so great and it was fun to watch them interact with each other while they were playing because you could see how much they were enjoying themselves and the chemistry they have as a group.
Just on a side note, James’s opening act was Noah Kahan, who I had never heard of before, but I really connected with his music because it fits right into the genre that I listen to, so I’m glad that I got to discover a new artist and I look forward to exploring more of his music in the future.
James as a performer is extremely fun to watch as well because you can see how much of energy he gives on the stage and to each song. His vocal range is also much wider than I had realized. As this was the only big concert I went to this term, and because it was so different in comparison to the ones that I watched here on campus, it was a nice change up from the instrument-driven performances I have seen. There is so much more engagement with the audience in these kinds of performances because the artist can talk to the audience and James was able to kind of have a conversation with everyone. Plus everyone is able to let loose and show their appreciation for the music and performance as much as they want, which really brings up the energy and atmosphere of the whole room. I think the greatest takeaway I have from seeing James Bay live is how much better he is than I thought because his records don’t show off how far his talent really extends.