After waiting for a frustrating hour and half squeezed between hundreds of people on the floor, my excitement was fading. I could feel my love for Joji slowly fading because of the long wait. Not to be too dramatic, my heart was breaking.Â
After opening performances by SavageRealm and Rei Brown wrapped up, the lights suddenly went off.Â
Stage lights flashed as if hundreds of cameras were pointed at the audience. A loud “HOW’S IT GOING VANCOUVER” echoed across the stadium, and Joji himself appeared on stage. Funnily, he was pointing an actual camera to the audience. The crowd roared with ecstasy.
He jumped straight into his music, opening his performance with Sanctuary. Everyone around me broke into their own brave solos. Hands began to rise to wave along with his melodious, raw renditions of songs from a mix of all his albums: In tongues, Ballads 1, and Nectar. This setlist was interspersed with small Joji-style comedic skits – a local wizard busker with failed magic tricks, Joji timing his pee break, then ordering a Filet-O-Fish from McDonald’s for SavageRealm. The chemistry between Joji and SavageRealm (who was also his DJ) was one that came as a pleasant surprise to me. The warmth it radiated set an optimistic tone for the rest of the concert.
Joji’s silhouette against the bright fluorescent visuals on the screen and his deep vocals paired with R&B pop music was an experience I could stay in forever. What made the experience more enthralling was the audience – every single person around me was singing at the top of their lungs, and despite the long wait, energy levels stayed high.
As soon as Slow Dancing in the Dark – a personal favourite – began to play, I could not get enough of Joji’s haunting yet soulful voice. Flashlights waving in the dark stadium slowly began to appear, and soon enough, a starry visual, along with the melancholic beat drop painted a picture which will be forever etched in my memory.
Again, not to be dramatic, I fell in love. Don’t get me wrong – I am not going to tell you that it was the artist I fell in love with. It was Vancouver and its people. The crowd made the experience one that was healing, and regardless, I was more than ecstatic to have watched an artist live who, prior to this evening, was only a name in my Spotify playlist.