Echosmith – The Hang Around Tour: Concert Review

With a grandeur presence on stage and amazing crowd engagement, Echosmith enveloped the venue with excitement. On Friday, November 4^th, Echosmith performed at House of Blues in Houston for their current Hang Around Tour.

Performing as Echosmith’s first opener was Band of Silver, a sibling trio from Nashville consisting of lead singer Avery, guitarist/singer Alex, and drummer Evan. They showcased their enthusiasm by performing songs from their albums Something Stronger and Endless Lullaby. They engaged the crowd and ended their performance in high spirits.

Echosmith’s second opener was Lostboycrow, who was astounded by the crowd’s impeccable energy. Lostboycrow was accompanied by Tanner Orange on guitar, Raymond Venta on bass and Jared Kleinstein on drums. Together they showcased impressive synergy and charisma by playing songs from albums Valleyheart and Santa Fe, and singles like “Indie Rock”. They surprised the crowd by performing an unreleased song from an album to release in December. Their performance left the crowd in high anticipation for what was yet to come.

Echosmith’s entrance to the stage was met with enthusiastic fervor from the crowd. They opened with their newest single “Gelato” and continued with “Over My Head.” After the song ended Sydney, the lead singer, exclaimed “Thank you guys so much! Houston showed up tonight! You guys are so much fun. Thank you so much for spending your Friday night with us, you could’ve been in so many other places, but you decided to hang out with Echosmith. That means a lot to us.”

Sydney continued to describe how grateful they are to be able to perform as the pandemic impacted live performance a lot and it had been two and a half years since they had been in Houston. When planning out the tour their number one goal was to connect with the crowd, and while live streams had their moment nothing beats seeing people in real life. They embarked on this goal by teaching the crowd how to sing the melody of their next song “Diamonds”.

They also surprised the crowd by performing an unreleased song called “Hindsight” as they asked the crowd if they wanted them to perform it, and with the enthusiastic response, they joked that they would have performed it no matter what as it was in the setlist. Sydney stated that the song was personal to her as she tends to overthink and go into a spiral and romanticize the past and that combining the two can be very confusing. She stated, “Sometimes looking back can give you a clearer view, and it would be helpful to have hindsight for the present to fully enjoy the moment before it is gone.” This description of the inspiration for their unreleased song gave a more impactful emotional meaning to the performance as Sydney got the crowd jumping and engaged throughout the song.

After the performance of “Talking Dreams”, Sydney introduced her brothers Noah playing bass, and Graham on drums. She continued to expand that it has been a rough couple of years and while it was different for everyone, we all went through it. Going through those hard times was difficult, but what made it all bearable was having people around that have loved and supported us and see us through it. She asked the crowd the question, “What is one person in particular who has been there for you in the past couple of years?”

I was the first person that was asked what I thought, and I responded that my mom was that person. She asked others as well they responded with God, sister, boyfriend, parents, and best friend. Imagine my surprise when I get asked to come onstage and meet Sydney, and Alina, my co-partner and photographer, recorded a video that Sydney dedicated to my mom as she was the person that has been with me through tough times. I am very grateful to Sydney for that experience and for sending a heartful message to my mom. As I tend to write my reviews based on the crowd as a whole and not entirely solely on my personal experience it is very strange to be writing this, but I thought it would be fun to include.

After I exited the stage, Sydney told the crowd to reach out to the person who means a lot to them and if they are not currently present to tell them that they love them this weekend. In the spirit of that the next song “Tell Her You Love Her” was dedicated to that message. The night continued with songs from albums, Talking Dreams, and Lonely Generation, a cover of “Take My Breath Away,” and singles “Goodbye,” and “Hang Around.” The energy in the venue was continuously high as the crowd was singing and clapping along.

Before performing their last song Sydney exclaimed, “This next song has come to mean the world to us. I think it might mean the world to some of you, the song is called “Cool Kids!” Then in the middle of performing “Cool Kids” Sydney stated, “So when we wrote this song ten years ago now, it very much came from a personal story, personal experience of feeling less than. Feeling like I wanted to be like somebody else, and to be honest when the song came back this year it was very comforting to know that I was not the only person still relating to this song ten years later. But that’s why we wrote this, this is “Cool Kids (our version).” Sydney got the crowd hype by getting everyone to sing and clap along. At the end of the song, she thanked the crowd profusely and wished the crowd goodnight.

Overall, Echosmith did a spectacular performance as they demonstrated their artistic ability with stellar vocals and impressive musicianship. They had a huge stage presence with their charisma by having constant responses from the crowd throughout the performance.