On August 3rd 2018 I went to see the Pentatonix Concert in Syracuse. The line to get in was out to the parking lot and it took around 15 minutes just to get past the gate. When I got to my seat I was a little surprised to see the amount of people that were there, the only seats I saw that were empty were the ones behind the soundboard which was kind of understandable. I sat in the very middle of the stadium so I got a good view of the stage from where I was. The first of the opening acts was a guy named Calum Scott, a 2015 winner of Britain's got talent and he sang 3 or 4 songs. He was very good and I was very surprised because I had no clue that he was even going to be there.
The next and last group to perform before Pentatonix was Echosmith, who unlike Calum I have heard of. They did a very good job of pumping up the audience before the main act, at one point they threw about 5 giant white balloons into the audience, but due to the wind they just flew to the left and out of the arena. In between Echosmith and Pentatonix they put up a giant white tarp in front of the stage so no one could see them set up. When the lights went out a lot of people were confused but once a spotlight turned on showing the silhouettes of everyone in Pentatonix. I can't recall what the first song they sang was but they got going right off the bat. One thing that I noticed is that it sounded like they were still not completely used to singing without Avi, but despite that they still sounded absolutely amazing.
They decided to use a little bit of nostalgia and they brought out Kevin with his cello to reenact the video that the others saw when they discovered him, the video was of him beat-boxing while playing the cello which is something interesting to see on a video, but it's honestly even better to see that live. Throughout the concert the crowd remained sitting which I both understood and didn't get at all, granted this was my first concert in how many years but I would expect more people to be standing.
Throughout the concert they brought a constant high energy that you could probably feel back in the lawn seats and they always seemed to find a way to engage the audience and pull their attention, whether it be taking a selfie with the crowd, throwing in a few nostalgia acts, or even giving a tribute to how they feel about music and what it should mean to others. When they were talking about this it was being presented in a PowerPoint format with their voices recorded so that the could change, so in a way this was their intermission. When they came back they were singing the song “Imagine" by John Lennon. One of the visuals that seems to stick in my mind the most from this would have to be what Scott was wearing which was a black and gold jacket that was a replica of one that John Lennon usually wore, if you've seen a photo of Lennon then you know exactly which Jacket I'm talking about.
The second half of the concert they did a lot more parodies, they did a mashup of “Despacito" and “Shape of You" as well as “Havana". As the concert began to come to a close they slowed it down a bit and did some of their more popular hits and the newest member Matt explained how he felt when he was given the call saying that he made it into Pentatonix, which he never thought he would get since he was in their competition in the show “Sing Off” which made them famous. My personal favorite part of the concert would have to be the end after they said goodbye to the audience and went backstage, waited 5 minutes and then came out for their encore which was “Bohemian Rhapsody” and I have to say that I've never heard a group get that close to nailing that song like I did that night. They didn't miss a beat and Mitch was absolutely perfect as the lead singer.
Overall I would have to give the concert overall a 4 out of 5