Mood Talk, the DJ opening for JUNGLE, set a high standard for the night. Despite most of his tracks being unfamiliar to the audience, he managed to get everyone dancing. While his music leans more towards house music compared to JUNGLE’s style, the crowd embraced these new tunes and was excited to discover a new artist with a similarly infectious dance vibe. Personally, I couldn’t stop listening to his track “Girl” after the concert.
As an interesting tidbit, although it wasn’t mentioned during the concert, Mood Talk and JUNGLE have known each other long before their professional careers took off, and have been friends since the age of nine. Now that they are touring together, they even collaborated on a track called “Don’t Play.”
JUNGLE then took to the stage at around 9:45 pm and opened with the energetic “Busy Earnin’.” The crowd really took the lyrics “you just can’t get enough” to heart - everyone eagerly anticipated what this would mean for the night’s performance. And true to form, the band delivered an electrifying show.
There were many positive aspects to the concert, but one of my favorite highlights was the noticeable lack of people looking down at their phones among the crowd. Surprisingly, the majority of attendees left the digital world behind to fully focus on the evening. It was a relief not to see people with their devices held above their heads trying to film every move and song. At one point, I paused and looked around, realising it had been a long time since I’d been in a packed concert venue without being surrounded by phones. It was both refreshing and somewhat nostalgic to experience this. It made me think that maybe we should introduce a ban on smartphones at concerts...
With hardly anyone filming, there was a palpable sense of pure enjoyment in the room. Everyone danced the night away—twirling, spinning, and jumping to their favorite music—without the distraction of documenting it all for the internet and a couple of likes.
Although slightly disappointed by the lack of choreographed dances, as you can so often see in their music videos, the band members themselves were surprisingly adept at moving their bodies. But where they truly shone was in their music: from “Back on 74" to “Casio” and “Heavy, California”, every song was performed with incredible precision and vocal harmony, closely matching their album recordings. And as for the lead singer’s captivating, high-pitched voice? It’s the real deal—she effortlessly hit those impressive notes and held them with grace and power.
