Review at a glance
Panic! At The Disco’s career has become an uphill slog in recent years. Singer Brendon Urie’s solution has been to make their fate-temptingly titled current album, Death of a Bachelor, a solo outing in all but name.
Live, though, he still needs hired hands (including bassist Dallon Weekes, downgraded to a touring member only), but just to remind us that Urie would have preferred this to be a one-man show, when the only drum solo of the evening arrived on Let’s Kill Tonight, Urie defenestrated the proper drummer and bashed away himself.
Despite his hubris and customary backflip during Miss Jackson, Urie lacked the presence to carry an entire evening and so for all the omnipresent whoa-whoa factor, there was too little wow-wow. A silly karaoke cover of Bohemian Rhapsody segued into David Bowie’s Oh! You Pretty Things, but, offering a more practical tribute, Urie donated his merchandising profits to Cancer Research UK.
The older Time to Dance and I Write Sins Not Tragedies stirred ancient, tub-thumping memories, but after 12 years at the coalface Panic! At The Disco remain a work in progress.
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