Concert review: Bryce Vine felt right at home in Columbus on latest tour stop

Chase-Anthony Ray
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:56:33 +0000
Arts & Life, Music, News, bryce vine, Columbus, concert, concert review, discography, energy, indie pop, intimate, kid quill, lazy fair, live music, night circus, Ohio, rapper, skully's music-diner, stage, sunflower seeds, tour, venue

Bryce Vine performed to a sold out crowd at Skully’s Music Diner in Columbus on Tuesday night. Credit: Chase Ray

If I could sum up a Bryce Vine show in one word, it’d simply be energy. The New York-based rapper/indie-pop artist was nothing but a ball of energy as he performed to a sold-out crowd at Skully’s Music-Diner on Tuesday night.

Going into the show, I honestly had little to no expectations. But after a few hours in the barely lit packed venue, I left a huge fan of not only Vine, but his opening act as well.

Way before Vine touched the stage, his opening act was hip-hop artist Kid Quill, who was joined by his impressive trumpet-playing band mate Connor, someone I’ve never heard of before, but by the time I got to my car I was searching his entire discography on Apple Music.

It’s rare that opening acts at concerts turn me into a fan, but something about Quill caught my attention, and I was assured of this later in his set when he performed one of the most self-aware songs I’ve ever heard called “The Opener.”

The song is pretty self-explanatory, but with lyrics like “I’m just the opener, yeah that’s what I am/And I just came to sing, maybe make a new fan/I know that you don’t care, yeah I know where I stand/But I appreciate the love, would you give me a chance,” it showed how genuine of a guy he was.

Throughout the set, he constantly thanked fans that knew his songs, acknowledged that his parents drove all the way down from Indianapolis to hear him perform in Columbus and my personal highlight of the night was his impressive mashup of popular songs, “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” and “Touch My Body.”

After Quill left the stage, Vine immediately opened his set to the thunderous noise of fans reciting the lyrics to “On the Ball” as soon as they heard the beat. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Vine initially, but from that moment I knew he had a cult-like following that hung on to his every word and danced with him throughout his entire set.

Vine ran through songs from all of his projects including “Night Circus” and “Lazy Fair” and he even performed a few unreleased songs promising they would be on his new album coming very soon.

Backed by nothing but a drummer, a DJ and one of the most impressive strobe light visuals I’ve ever seen at a concert, Vine was a big ball of awkward energy throughout. He was constantly interacting with the crowd and making jokes about how he forgot at what point his set was supposed to end.

Some personal highlights for me included his performances of “Sunflower Seeds,” “Private School,” “Glamorama” and “The Fall.”

All in all, it was one of the most intimate yet exciting concerts I’ve ever been to, and Vine is going to only get bigger as he makes more and more fans on the rest of his tour.