#edmund irwin singer | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blueberry-beanie · 2 years

Photo

Glass Animals at Columbiahalle Berlin | 5th September 2022

It’s been a while since the concert and I haven’t managed to write down my experiences yet. Glass Animals have been on my list for quite a while and I had wanted to buy a ticket months ago. Unfortunately, I had to pull off a last minute stunt with an Ebay purchase instead because I wasn’t sure if I would be moving places or working on this day.

The journey to Berlin went surprisingly smoothly, although I took a Flixbus this time due to the insane prices for the train. I arrived at the hostel a bit too early, so I took a walk around the local neighbourhood, found some vegan fast food and strolled through the Mauerpark. It was a gorgeous sunny day - perfect to go exploring.

I soon got reminded that Berlin and me are not best friends though, when I got lost completely and could not find the tram stop Google told me was just in front of my nose. It turns out my phone was having issues with location services these days - a bad timing.

At around 3 pm I checked in at the hostel. To my surprise, the guy at the reception used to go to the same uni I am supposed to start at. The world is small. Another surprise was the big and tidy, but completely empty eight-bed-room. I took a shower, charged my phone and relaxed. At some point I figured I should go to the venue to arrive there shortly after 5 pm.

This time my calculations were wrong. Although there was still plenty of time to go til doors, there were already about 50 people. Something I instantly noticed was just how diverse the fans looked like. Many had colourful hair, unusual clothing and jewellery.

A guy in a transparent shirt sorted everyone according to their numbers on their hands, so I just waited until they were done and joined two nice girls from Poland. Olivia and Paulina came here together to only their second concert and were super sweet to talk to.

I was surprised just how many people kept arriving. Shortly before the doors were due to open, you could not even see the queue’s end anymore. Then everything happened really fast: Ticket check, security check - I noticed there was a second security check nobody seemed to use and quickly changed the lane. That turned out to be my saving grace - I made it to front row right, just as I wanted.

I can’t remember any concert venue filling up this quickly with so many people squished together just minutes after doors. It became difficult to go to the bathroom or get drinks just right away.

I was lucky to have nice people around me, although I sadly lost Olivia and Paulina. Later I spotted them somewhere in the middle, but they did not see me. Behind me Erik and Emilia, brother and sister, came together in self-made t-shirts and with a sign. Emilia wasn’t old enough to go alone so her brother accompanied her. They were really lovely and we had a good time waiting together.

The opening act Sable was not very good in my opinion, but maybe that was because I could barely hear what the singer was whispering into her microphone. The audience mostly loved them, though.

In the meantime Glass Animals used their Dreamland aesthetic to mess with us old style: The estimate on the Showtime.exe file download would change from anything between minutes and literal years. Good old times.

We could see Davey backstage all in white, pacing around and talking to people. At some point we waved at him and he waved back. At around 9 pm smeone put a pineapple onstage:

And then, a few minutes later, the fun finally started with them playing Life Itself. It became clear right away that this was not going to be a normal concert. Not only was Wavey Davey on fire, but so was the crowd. The venue was absolutely packed and everyone had decided to sing and cheer their hearts out. After every single song.

At some point we just wouldn’t stop cheering and Dave was in total disbelief about what was happening, just holding his head and saying “Wow, wow” repeatedly.

The band proceeded to churn out bangers the entire time. There was not one weak moment in the entire setlist. Everything was complimented by the wonderfully colourful visuals and the lights.

N had been teaching me all band members’ names, so I knew exactly it was Drew in front of me on guitar and piano. Well I needn’t have worried so much about telling him apart from Ed, because Dave made a point to introduce him at least three times before remembering the band consists of two more members.

I did see a lot of Drew and tried to take a few pictures of him showing off. The “physics prof” as N and I named him after one of her former teachers, wasn’t very much in teaching mode today. He was more busy showing off to everyone and enjoying the show.

Both Ed and Drew came to the front often and fans were cheering for them and even showing hearts. It was very sweet how the band interacted with the audience and with each other. It seemed to be one big and very hyped up family. Sadly, I could not see much of Joe, the drummer, because he was mostly hidden behind his drumkit from my point of view.

Unfortunately some light situations also made photos difficult, but it was anyway quite impossible to catch Dave in motion. He is a human bouncy ball, constantly jumping and dancing around, and never being too much out of breath to not deliver stellar vocals.

Dave made all of us anticipate his little kiss during Space Ghost and it was honestly hillarious how everyone was cheering for that. During Gooey he came to the barrier and sang directly in front of some overjoyed fans. But for Pork Soda, he gave the pinapple to the very tall girl next to me.

Truly, no throwing, very careful giving instead. The lucky girl was dancing with the pineapple for the entire song. Too soon it was time for the encore with Tokyo Drifting and, of course, Heat Waves. I decided to let Emilia to the front for her favourite song, and it was definitely a good decision and made her very happy.

The last song was completely euphoric with everyone singing their hearts out. Too soon, the concert was over and we all had to go from Dreamland back to our ordinary lives.

Although my journey back to the hostel went very smoothly, the next day already started from the wrong foot. First thing in the morning, my USB cable disintegrated and I was left with 20 percent charge. So I went on a stressed odyssey to find vegan breakfast and a cable.

This made me really anxious and by the time I finally found sth to eat and a new cable at Alexanderplatz, I already used up much of my mental capacity for that day. I had really wanted to go to the Pergamon Museum for many years and somehow it had never worked out.

This day I was greeted by some security guy straight out of a movie in black sunglasses and wordlessly thrown off the property. Some weird barriers and building sites and the security guys made me really anxious together with the general aloofness on the Museumsinsel with its huge, palace-like buildings.

I decided it was not good to push myself any further because it's not a thing to go to the museum crying. So I headed to Brandenbuger Tor, which is already familiar to me, with the goal to go and explore the Tiergarten. What could possibly go wrong? A big, peaceful park for me to calm down and regain my mental strength.

Well, no. At some point two grown men approached me with some piece of paper in their hand and broken english and they would not back off even when I said no repeatedly, instead following me and invading my space really closely until I had to yell for them to leave me alone.

This left me crying somewhere in the bushes and I did not really get better even when N called me to calm me down. Wanting to sit on a bench for a while to regain composure, a poor unknowing fella came and asked me politely to sit next to me. I took my backpack and left him baffled and feeling sorry, but I was just crying again.

Things only started getting better when I arrived at another familiar place, the Hauptbahnhof, and went to Vapiano to get some food. The familiar environment helped keeping me stable and I decided to head for the central bus station a bit sooner and go explore a nearby park with a lake.

It was very beautiful and finally nobody bothered me, so the journey home actually went very smoothly once again. Finally at home, I was overjoyed to get into bed and feel safe and comfortable.

This should have been the end of the story, but it isn’t completely. A few days later, I started editing the photos from the concert and post them on instagram. Honestly, I did not expect or want much, but the fan base just blew me away completely. People would not stop sharing, complimenting and even messaging me with requests to draw the photos or use them as their phone background.

Especially Drew got a lot of love from the fans. But then Ed shared my photos of him and my inbox really exploded with notes and even fans excitedly congratulating me with being noticed by a band member. I have honestly never once seen fans this committed to include everyone and share art and photos. It made me feel very welcome.

Dreamland in real life may have ended, but I’m looking forward to the band’s next project and I really hope to see them again soon.

#glass animals #ga berlin #dave bayley #drew macfarlane #edmund irwin singer #joe seaward #dreamland #my concerts #my photo

14 notes · View notes