Live Review: Polyphia and Johan Lenox | o2 Institute Birmingham | 12/05/2023
Instrumental genre-blurring four piece virtuosity machine Polyphia return to Birmingham for a sold out UK leg of their 2023 world tour. Joined by LA classical infused rapper and contributor to their 2022 hit album Johan Lenox.
Johan Lenox
Opening the show tonight, and across all of their extended EU tour dates, Johan Lenox is probably not a familiar name for most of those in attendance tonight. The LA based classical music infused trap rapper and producer has been making a name for himself for a number of years now receiving production credits from high-profile artists such as Kanye West and Travis Scott, but more importantly, heavily contributing to the most recent Polyphia album. He’s joined onstage by his DJ and a pair of local session violinists who weave beautiful melodies between the trap hi-hats, deep 808 bass hits and Lenox’s saccharine auto-tuned rapping. Blasting through cuts from his ‘debut’ album WDYWTBWYGU the crowd are unsure what to make of it at first, but quickly start bouncing along to the infectious beats and catchy vocal hooks. Lenox makes an unexpected change for the final third of the set, morphing into a full blown conductor roll whilst playing piano and directing the additional musicians onstage. Moving from being unsure about his performative credentials to completely sold on the premise, Johan Lenox was a truly fantastic surprise and an great opener for Polyphia, hopefully he’s able to make it back to the uk soon for headline length sets to see what he’s truly made of.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn (@synthesizephoto)
Score: 8/10
Polyphia
There is a night and day difference between Polyphia’s last UK excursion in early 2020 to now. Exploding in popularity due to viral success on tik-tok and the massive success of 2022 album Remember That You Will Die, the band have not only moved up a step in venue size and live production in the past three years, but they’ve sold out every single show on this UK leg of their tour well in advanced. Birmingham is no exception, the sold out 1500 capacity main room is absolutely rammed with rabid Polyphia fans who erupt as the band take to the stage and blast straight into 2022 album opener ‘Genesis’ and second single ‘Neurotica’ to an unhinged response from the capacity audience. The band waste little time onstage, moving swiftly into New Levels New Devils track ‘O.D.’ before the triple hitter of ‘Goose’, ‘40oz’ and ‘Icronic’ from The Most Hated EP, giving the audience very little reprieve from the onslaught of poly-rhythms and mind-melting virtuosity from guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage.
There is a lone microphone at the front of the stage all night, sparingly used by guitarist Scott LePage and bassist Clay Gober to interact with and hype up the crowd between songs. LePage takes a moment to joke with the audience before introducing a game he wants to play with them, ‘sing the riff’, before teasing them with the iconic guitar melody from their breakout 2014 hit “Champagne”. Its safe the say the crowd are very familiar with it, echoing the riff back perfectly in time when the back stop for passages mid-song for the crowd to scream it back almost louder than the PA itself.
The bigger production budget has been used to great effect, the new heavily timed lighting is particularly excellent, really helping to accent and support the impressive technicality on display from the musicians. The sound tonight is also magnificent, every small detail of the intricate guitar lines are audible and the two guitars are panned just enough to add to that sense of depth and presence of Henson and LePage on either side of the large stage. Clay Aeschliman’s drumming seems to a mix of live mics and triggers to lend to the trap-production style the band have been employing on their albums and its blended masterfully, the hi-hats have that trap-ratchet click to them and the kick drum has the additional low-end punch without detriment to Gober’s bass tones.
Polyphia are honestly mind-blowing to watch onstage, their live performance almost seems impossibly perfect, but it all down to their calibre as musicians and performers as a fully cohesive and locked-in live unit. Note for note and beat for beat, they sound just as high quality and refined tonight as they do on album. The rest of the set continues on, the obvious focus of tonight being songs from Remember That You Will Die, however it is a slight shame that they choose the more instrumental rooted tracks instead of those with features (‘abc’ being noticeably missing as a personal favourite), but it is a minor grievance at best. Weaving a few more classic cuts like “Drown” and “The Worst” in-between the likes of “All Falls Apart”, “Reverie” and “The Audacity”. Polyphia close the main set with the ludicrously impressive “Playing God”, the crowd lose their mind as the electric nylon-strung guitars are brought out for one of the strangest live moments of the year so far.
The set isn’t quite over yet though, LePage once again jokes a little with the crowd saying they have not only one, but TWO more songs left to a raucous response as the intro sample for “G.O.A.T” plays. Clearly toying with the crowd, they throw in an unexpected and shortened cover of the cKy classic “96 Quite Bitter Beings” which is a little lost on the young audience, but still gets a loud approval from fans in the crowd. Closing the night with Renaissance classic “Euphoria”, Polyphia once again prove that they are not only one of the most technically gifted bands active, but one of the most joyous, engaging and straight up fun live experiences available. Tonight felt like another effortless stepping stone on their way to higher and higher acclaim within the industry. It feels somewhat extra satisfying that they have managed to sell out this show on a night where guitar virtuoso legend Joe Satriani is playing elsewhere in the city. This is an experience that should not be slept on in the future by any alternative music or frankly any fan of guitar based music.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn (@synthesizephoto)
Score: 9/10