I saw this meme a couple of days ago about world tours, and the fact that most musical artists, when referring to world tours, end up just playing in the most default, cliche countries.

It was a little bit of a surprise to me, then, that a smaller artist like Jacob Collier was able to visit way more places than larger artists like Taylor Swift, for example. He’s been travelling to quite a few places, but most importantly (for me, at least), he came to India!

When he announced his Djesse world tour, I went to his website and scrolled through the list of places he was intending on playing at. Of course, it was a little bit of a surprise to see a couple of Indian cities on the list, but I was instantly brought back down to earth when I realised that he was only going to play at Mumbai and Delhi. I was actually considering going all the way to Mumbai just to watch his show!

You could imagine my incredulousness, then, when he announced that he would be coming to Bangalore in addition to Mumbai and Delhi! I was honestly so excited; I didn’t expect that anyone would come to Bangalore (but I suppose it does make sense, given the massive music scene in the city) but it seemed like Jacob Collier had enough fans in the city to warrant setting up a tour date here!

I’m not complaining. I was really excited.

The Location and the Ambience

The concert took place in the Jayamahal Palace Grounds, which was quite an odd location for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it’s not exactly the largest concert ground in the city: Palace Grounds is significantly larger and has historically held some of Bangalore’s largest concerts too. It was a little odd that Skillbox (the company responsible for the organisation for this event) chose what was basically just the front porch of a hotel.

Secondly, it was an outdoor venue. Both of Jacob Collier’s other shows in India were indoor shows, so it was a little weird that this one was outdoor. I’m not really sure why this was the case; perhaps it was because there was more demand for tickets here and so they were able to skimp on the venue without losing money, or maybe because culturally speaking in Bangalore being in a concert is inherently connected to smoking and/or drinking. And wow, did people smoke and drink. At some points, it was quite difficult to stand in the place we were standing.

In either case, the poor venue choice was further exacerbated by the fact that the weather was being extremely uncooperative. It was raining basically nonstop the day of and the day prior to the show, and so the ground was extremely muddy and slippery. Additionally, the rain forced the organisers to make the show a standing event instead of a sitting one.

The Opening Act

The concert was supposed to start at 6:30, but Jacob Collier didn’t really come out until around 8. Until then, the stage was taken by an artist named Aditi Ramesh, with another guitarist, and a piano (a pretty sweet Nord one at that)!

The music being played was actually really good! It was definitely quite musician-music-esque (like there were some Carnatic music elements and techniques that she used that I didn’t really understand much at all), but overall, I really liked the opening.

I don’t think people were really paying attention, though! I suppose they were just eagerly waiting for Jacob Collier.

The Lights

If anyone has watched YouTube videos of Jacob Collier concerts, or has been to one yourselves, you’d be aware of the crowd work that takes place in his concerts (more on that later).

In the show, this crowd work was enhanced by the lighting. There were lights on the stage (which were also incredibly cool, but nothing too non-standard) as well as lights facing the audience. Whenever Collier would ask the audience to sing, the lights facing us would turn on!

This seems like a subtlety, of course, but I really think it aided in increasing the immersiveness of the show and driving home the fact that a Jacob Collier show entails making music together. Not to do a literary analysis on a concert or anything, but I digress.

The Sound

Something we were a little bit concerned about was the sound in the show. Being an outdoor venue and a temporary stage, the risk of having terrible sound was actually quite high. Luckily, though, that didn’t turn out to be the case at all.

There was no feedback and screeching, all the mics worked perfectly, and most importantly, the speakers weren’t too loud. I’m not sure if this is status quo for large concerts, so this might be the fact that I’ve never really been to a concert before talking!

Additionally, the mixing was also incredible, especially for an outdoor show.

The Music

Of course, the one constant was probably going to be Jacob Collier, and he did deliver. The music was absolutely amazing.

More importantly, though, I think he was able to involve the audience to an extent I’ve seen very few other artists be able to do. Perhaps this is down to the fact that his audience probably has a higher-than-average concentration of musicians then other artists’, but I’m not really sure.

The one thing I was a little sad about was the setlist. Being a solo piano tour, the songs that were able to be played were quite limited; most of the songs were from In My Room or Djesse Vol 1, but the album I know the most is Djesse Vol 3 (which is way more electronic), so most of the songs I knew weren’t really played much.

He did play some classics, though - songs like Somebody To Love by Queen, Moon River, and Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder.

Overall, I really liked this concert. For a first concert, it was amazing: the sound was great, and the music was better.

If I had the option, I’d definitely go for another one of his concerts! Hopefully one with a full instrumental setup!