West 22nd brought their ‘To Be or Not to Be’ tour to The Song and Dance on April 25th for a sold-out show. This was one of the last stops before their final show in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 2nd.
Their first opener, Isabella Allon, a Syracuse University sophomore, started off the night with a few originals, such as ‘Lover’. Allon also performed a cover of ‘She’s So Gone’ from Lemonade Mouth, earning a roar from the audience as they sang back at her. “My band kept being like no one’s gonna know it.” To which she responded, “They’ll know it,” and the audience certainly did.
Dipsea Flower was next, a California band in the indie genre. They blew the audience away with their chemistry and energetic performance. Mid-set singer Ari Rosenberg invited West 22nd members Jeremy Acheta and Logan Madsen to perform an unplugged performance of ‘Burnouts’. Anyone who is attending a show is in for a once and a life time experience with this collaboration.
West 22nd entered the stage at 9:45 pm, going right into ‘Laugh It Off’. The band followed through with the same energy Dipsea Flower started, even through their slower songs like ‘I Wonder Why’.
Fans Ada Soriano and Abby Chalawich traveled 154 miles from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to see West 22nd after finding them recommended through TikTok and Spotify. “We both shared the love for their music and had to see them in person!” said Soriano.
People around the venue clearly had the same passion as Soriano and Chalawich as they danced and sang throughout the set, and even the technical difficulties, like Madsen’s guitar seemingly deciding not to connect to the sound system for ‘Save Your Soul’.
Even a mishap like this is what made the night so memorable. Madsen introduced the song “This is a little song about when you’re going through hardship and hard times, instead of cutting corners and keeping it all inside, it’s about going the long way around and facing it head on and doing the hard work and conversations with people in your life. Just know that people are always there for you, even when we feel like they’re not.”
His guitar not connecting caused an unplugged acoustic rendition of the song, making the song’s meaning that much more meaningful as strangers came together and bandmate Gabe Acevedo accompanied on another acoustic guitar.
To close out the night, the band played ‘Virginia Highlands’ not once but twice after an audience member asked for the song again. Their performance didn’t end there as they came out for an encore of a cover of ‘Tougue Tied’ by GROUPLOVE, leaving fans breathless as the song concluded.
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