Looking around me, to my surprise, I see a wide range of age groups at Starlight Theatre on Sept. 22, 2015 for Twenty One Pilots eighth U.S. date for their Blurryface Tour. It seemed like ages ranged from below 10 years to 50’s (some however were there to chaperone their kids). Some wore black paint on their chests to their necks and arms just like lead singer Tyler Joseph does in all their new music videos from Blurryface while others went for a more toned down look of jeans and a t-shirt. Needless to say, I was expecting more of an age range from 13-19 and stereotypical “emo” kids based off of the tour videos they’ve been posting to their social media pages recently. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a huge fan since I saw them at 96.5 the Buzz’s “Buzz Under the Stars” night two with Foster the People on May 20, 2014 but since they’re huge explosion of fame, their fan base has widened to that crowd.

Two openers were billed to perform at Starlight that night. Finish Ticket from San Francisco, Calif. and Echosmith from Chino, Calif. With a five song set, Finish Ticket uneventfully opened the show. To my untrained ears (I’ve never heard of them before), all their songs sounded the same. Not many people were standing up either until Brendan Howe, their lead singer, asked everyone to stand up. About half of the spectators did, but only stood until about the middle of the third song.

Echosmith went up only a few minutes after their set ended and was obviously more popular than Finish Ticket since as soon as they got on stage, everyone who was watching stood up and let out a cheer as they took the stage. I thought that maybe seeing Echosmith live would make me appreciate their music more (which it didn’t) but I am astonished by their bassist, Noah Sierota, the brother of Sydney Sierota, the band’s lead singer. After suffering a punctured lung a few days before the show, Noah was on stage hooked up to an oxygen tank still delivering a performance for their adoring fans.

And finally, after closing with “Cool Kids”, it was time. Echosmith exited offstage and the theatre filled with excitement as everyone anticipated the arrival of Tyler Joseph (lead singer) and Josh Dun (drummer).

The opening of “heavydirtysoul” began playing intentionally without warning and Tyler and Josh ran on stage. This would be my second time seeing the boys on stage so the bar was already set high, but their show was everything that I hoped for. Each song was perfect. I’ve never felt more united with a huge crowd of people than when Tyler, with ukulele in hand, played his cover of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” that had been circulating around Tumblr and Facebook for a few months now.

As a tribute to their older fans, the boys played a medley of songs from “Vessel” and their self titled album in the middle of their set, which ended with the beginning of “The Run and Go”. Josh tapped away on Tyler’s piano with his drumsticks and the crowd sang the catchy “do-do-do-do” leading into it until Tyler noticed a fly on his piano (similar to their Philadelphia show) which he lovingly named Phil. Phil eventually flew away and the song began again until the break in the middle when Tyler stopped and started to excitedly talk about the ladybug that’s been sitting on the C# key of his piano. Listening to him talk about the ladybug sounded like a child talking about their new best friends. Josh eventually walked over to Tyler’s piano to catch a glimpse of the ladybug before it flew away and they began where they started again. And the rest of the show went smoothly, with Tyler running out into the crowd to a makeshift perch for him to stand above the crowd with during “Car Radio” for what was initially going to be the last song, but the crowd wanted more. Everyone banged on their seats until they came rushing out again and finished up the show with their more downbeat songs “Trees” and “Goner”.

The set was very minimalistic with just Josh’s drums, Tyler’s piano, a platform in the middle of the two and a screen behind them that flashed all different sorts of colors, patterns and small clips during the show which was the polar opposite of the Taylor Swift concert that was happening that same night.

Overall, I’m very satisfied with how the show went, besides the fact that they couldn’t come out into the crowd with their drums like they normally do (Starlight, being a theatre, has seating so it’s very dangerous for them to do so). I still can’t decide whether seeing them the first or the second time was better but I think this time was, because they had more meaning to me than they did before.