Concert Review: Picture This! Are Electric Love At Bowery Ballroom
I have asked this before, and I will ask this again, “Do we change or do we grow?” Seeing Picture This! at Bowery Ballroom, this question felt pertinent. It was the same band and songs, but their style and dynamic had changed. They had exchanged some of their grounded nature for a bit of glam, and I was not expecting it.
A sheer, glitter top with salmon, svelte pants and a cross earring! Singer Ryan Hennessy was serving LOOKS, and even chopped off his “Uncle Jesse” locks to show the future of Picture This! will be poppier in style. Their candlelight, guitar melodies felt amped by electrolytes thanks to his heightened energy. While I thought he was, from his previous show, charming and forthcoming with the crowd, Hennessy’s frontman status has grown tenfold. With his mic on hand, he, literally, went into the crowd and, prior, threw himself on the floor in praise motions for the riffs, romance, and raucous their songs stirred in the jam-packed audience.
Sure, Picture This! may have grown/ changed their style, but their impact on their audience was unwavering! Irish flags were abound, and a chant of “”Olé, Olé, Olé” was gleefully sung to summon them back for an encore. The energy was comparable to a soccer match, of which Picture This! hit their songs like goals, and won against the opposing team: Boredom! It may seem strange to say that a concert was far from boring. After all, that should be a given. Yet, there are many levels/ layers to fun, and Picture This! hit all of them, in part, because Hennessy has changed/grown. If before he was the center of attention, now he is the center of the universe. That dynamic amplified the group’s songs to love, and gave his voice a chanting quality.
Similar to Pinegrove, you go to a Picture This! concert to sing-along, which explains their sports-like ambiance. You are in constant cheer mode, of which, by the end of the night, people were climbing their friends shoulders and popping up into the air like a human version of “whack a mole.” It was happily wild; a sentiment that shines through songs “Let’s Be Young,” “Dream,” “Never Change,” and “One Drink.” Their music sings to the giddiness that humbles your hardened heart when a relationship is going well, and makes you excited enough to fight for it to get better. I can honestly say, after that show, and the introduction of their unreleased song, ‘Everything Or Nothing,” their next album/ tour is going to be joyous. For More Information On Picture This! Click Here.
Picture This – Addicted To You
