Following the release of their new album, Heroes earlier this month, The Midnight kicked off the highly anticipated Change Your Heart tour last week, making their triumphant return to Denver on the third night of the run. Just one night after performing at the intimate Belly Up in Aspen, and almost a year since their sold-out two-night stint at The Gothic Theatre, it only felt like a natural progression for The Midnight to finally play the much larger Mission Ballroom. Early on in their set, vocalist Tyler Lyle mentioned that it was their largest headlining North American performance yet, and throughout the rest of their set, the band’s excitement to be playing such a large room to such excited fans was palpable.
Kicking off the night were Nashville alt-pop band, Nightly, who reminisced on stage about playing at the much smaller Larimer Lounge and expressed their gratitude to be welcomed back to Denver with open arms. While short, the band’s set was filled to the brim with fan favorites and sing-alongs like “On Your Sleeve”, “Twenty Something” and “hate my favorite band”. By the end of their set, vocalist Jonathan Capeci was jumping down into the crowd to sing with fans, even plucking a bedazzled, bright pink hat off of someone in the front row, wearing it for the rest of the set. They were the perfect warm-up for the exciting set to follow.
And of course, The Midnight didn’t disappoint. Their latest album, Heroes is the third release in a trilogy of albums – joining 2018’s Kids and 2020’s Monsters – and the band did a flawless job of tying all three albums into one another throughout their set. They kicked off the night with a few songs from Kids (“Wave”, “Lost Boy” and a mashup of “Explorers” and “Kids”) before delving into Monsters (“America Online”, “Deep Blue” and “Prom Night”) and finally incorporating their new material into their set with six tracks taken from Heroes. With snippets from all three albums, The Midnight easily immersed fans into their rich world, before then diving into the second half of their set, filled with older deep-cuts and fan-favorite singalongs. By the end of the night, the whole crowd was singing and dancing along to “Sunset” with Mission Ballroom’s disco ball spinning overhead.
With the tour just barely underway and European tour dates announced this week, The Midnight are just gearing up for an exciting few months of shows. If you haven’t gotten tickets yet, or were looking for a reason to do so: this is your sign. This is one show you don’t want to miss.
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