Anyone who's been to a Twenty One Pilots show knows just how magical they are. Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun feed off the audience's energy, and vice versa. The chemistry is undeniable all the way around. But in the age of COVID-19, bands have been forced to rethink live shows. Some are testing out the concept of drive-in concerts, but would that work for a band like TOP that relies so heavily on interaction? Joseph and Dun recently spoke to AltPress about how they've been brainstorming on how to play shows post-pandemic.

“Josh and I have definitely talked about it,” Joseph says. “How are we going to keep playing shows when it’s such an important fabric to this band? What does that look like now? It’s hard for me to even imagine playing a show at this point, which really bums me out."

“There are certain things that Josh and I hold very close. One of those is the album—the idea of a group of songs being released together. And who knows? Maybe that’ll become extinct," he continued. "Then there’s also the idea of experiencing a live show with a bunch of people. What can be accomplished with a concert? I guess we haven’t really landed on how we feel about it, but it feels like it’s really hard to replicate the magic that could happen in a live show in any other way other than being at a show.”

“It’s hard to describe the feeling of a concert. It’s not hard to describe a livestream of a concert. I don’t know the nuances of a live show: If we can’t even describe it, how do we tell that to a production team that’s going to help us accomplish that?" Joseph lamented. “We’ve talked about it. And right now it feels like it’s really hard to come up with an off-brand version of a concert.”

“I think there is definitely a desire and an intention to stand out a little bit, particularly within live performances,” Dun added. “There is this importance of adapting and looking at each situation a little bit isolated and trying to then figure out that situation for what it is. A lot of times it’s through the lens of, ‘What would we want to see if we were the spectator?’"

“This is definitely a curveball that nobody saw coming in the world,” he admitted. “And we don’t really know when shows are going to come back and what that’s going to look like. But I think we both definitely want to take advantage of whatever we can to make sure that it’s still the best experience we think it can be.”

Read TOP's full interview here.

Mike Jones

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