WATERPARKS - FANDOM: LIVE IN THE UK DVD
Alex shares their thoughts on the new Waterparks live concert film, FANDOM: LIVE IN THE UK.
Earlier this year, Waterparks announced their plans to film and release a live concert DVD and album during the Birmingham date of the FANDOM UK tour. This is after plans to create ‘Entertainment: the Movie’, which unfortunately did not happen. In charge of filming this concert was photographer and long time friend of the band, Jawn Rocha.
The band’s music, along with Rocha’s intense visuals helped to create a live dvd like no one has ever seen before. With color palettes that perfectly compliment the songs, and other visual aids that just bring together, this DVD is definitely different from the rest.
Rocha and the band participated in a live premiere of the film, where fans could purchase tickets to join in, four days before the film’s release. Fans would take to the chat on the side to react with each other in their first time viewing the film, and afterward, participate in a Zoom Q&A with Rocha and the band.
Even the beginning credit visuals, and filming from outside the venue begin to create excitement for the 90 minute film ahead. The music that is played in these beginning credits, somewhat sets the mood for the first song on the setlist which is ‘Cherry Red’ as it has some of the same trancy vibes in the beginning of it, as everyone involved with the DVD are credited.
As these credits end, it goes straight into ‘Cherry Red’ showing bursts of color as the title screen lights up, and each member is shown as the audience sings along with the opening track to the set. Rocha makes use of what plays on the screen behind drummer, Otto Wood, during this song, letting the cherry blossoms in the screen flow out through the audience. The editing and coloring for this track perfectly show how amplified the crowd is during this song, and works well to introduce the live DVD as a whole.
Just like in the album, ‘Cherry Red’ flows perfectly to ‘Watch What Happens Next.’ The tones in this track are more blue, with the crowd jumping and singing along, and sometimes can be heard reciting the song on their own. In a wonderful editing touch, singer Awsten Knight’s eyes change to orange as the background changes from blue to green. This is a nod at the band’s music video for the track released last year. The energy during this track, with the band, the fans and the confetti shot out, are absolutely amplified through the editing, and will make anyone watching want to jump along.
The next track, infamous for the band, is ‘Blonde’. Using the same backdrop as they did in Warped Tour. A lot of nods to this music video as well, can be seen throughout this song’s visuals whether it be the screen behind Wood, or just simple edits within the film itself.
After an announcement of the DVD, and the filming at the show, the band leads into Dream Boy, which includes a lot of soft colors, and what Rocha described in the Q&A after as ‘fancam vibes’ even going as far as to say ‘Don’t make a ‘Dream Boy’ fancam, I already did that for you.’ The visuals include the sparkles that are usually found on these, which intensify as the song progresses, ultimately making it hard to make anything out in the end, which was the intention based on the song’s meaning.
‘Double Dare 2019’ is next, and was a way for the band to reclaim their work after breaking ties with their former label, Equal Vision. The build up with both the band and the crowd make for an extravagant opening to the melody as the background slowly builds up. This is reflected in the visuals, changing with every song in the medley showing the overall vibe of that song on its own while also tying them all together.
The next song on the set list is ‘High Definition’, and for the beginning of this song, when the first note plays, the visuals turn to black and white as Knight begins to sing. After the first verse, the visuals begin to shift and move slowly especially as the chorus hits while also capturing the crowd together, some on the shoulders of others and others raising their held hands.
The mood shifts when ‘Worst’ plays and the audience is told to sing the beginning of it, before Knight begins singing, the crowd still strong behind him. The visuals turn to a mirrored image during the chorus, matching perfectly with the instrumentals.
After this song, Knight introduces De’wayne, who opened for the band on the UK and US tours and the year before with the Entertainment Tour. De’wayne is introduced for the next song, ‘War Crimes’ in which he performs with the band. The band plays this song a little differently than they had in the album, including heavier guitars, and an overall incredible amount of energy from all involved. In the bridge of this song, Rocha goes back to the small touches that make an incredible amount of difference. When the song goes to a slower part right before the chorus, flashes of light are seen floating around the stage, and throughout the crowd, before the tempo begins to pick up once again.
‘[REBOOT]’ also shares the same aspect as ‘War Crimes’ being that it’s played with heavier guitars than originally done on the album. With blue tones in the visuals, Rocha also uses smaller bits of light that flow throughout the band and audience beginning when the guitarist, Geoff Wigington, makes his entrance in the song. The visuals in this also spiral after the chorus, and die off entirely, before Knight begins to sing again. Towards the end of this song, Knight is transformed into somewhat of a chrome robot. This however, was not done by Rocha and was done by a third party visual company.
After this track, Knight sits with the audience and jokes about things like being a cool stepdad and live DVDs he used to watch as a kid including All Time Low and My Chemical Romance, before one of the audience members, Louise (@louisemelissa22), informed him that his shoelaces were untied. As he gave the microphone to Rocha so he could fix this, Knight starts a chant for their friend, before prompting everyone to ‘boo’ him. This escalated into booing things like global warming, and other members of the band, before bringing up stories of past tours.
Afterwards, ‘Easy to Hate’ begins and the bright colors fit perfectly with the cheery instrumentals that go along with the song. With this track, when the line ‘my blue and green they turned to red,’ Knight’s hair is edited to reflect these colors. During Wigington’s guitar solo, the visuals intensify somewhat like a fancam can sometimes look, going back to the bright colors afterward.
Next, ‘Lucky People’ is also a staple track for the band, sometimes influencing people to bring string lights to the shows as a nod to the band’s music video released with the Entertainment album. The visuals in this one keep the blue tones, while also bringing out some of the lights within the stage, and the crowd, flashing their lights. This song, however, does something visually that none of the rest do. Towards the end, Rocha incorporates a vintage visual to the song with film, and the audio reflects this, and makes the entire thing seem like something one would see one a VHS tape, or if you’re just listening, like a voicemail.
Another acoustic song next is ‘21 Questions’ where Knight notices the phone lights and encourages the whole venue to flash them, causing them to be a focal point in the visuals, one shot even being Knight playing and the entire crowd lit up behind him. Wood and Wigington also are shown entering the stage as the crowd has these lights on, bringing excitement for those who know how the song builds up afterwards. After the two start to play as well, the visuals change to bright colors which are amplified by the crowd’s lights, and work together to create an exciting and energetic ending to the song.
The next track, which absolutely blew up on TikTok, ‘I Miss Having Sex but at Least I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore’ uses a sepia tone in the visuals, and shares more crowd shots, and slow motion shots of the band which contrast with the faster paced instrumentals. These fade out entirely as the next track is played.
‘Zone Out’, while more of an interlude, contains absolutely amazing visuals with red tones, and perfect overlays that match the spaced out theme perfectly. Both Knight and Wigington sit during this track facing the visuals behind Wood as the backing track plays and leads them into the next song.
‘I Felt Younger When We Met’ starts out like a punch, with red tones all over as Knight begins to sing, the camera pushing towards him with every accent in the intro. After the intro, the tones change to blues and greens, as more slow motion shots are used to emphasize the track. Towards the end of the track, confetti shoots out once again, and the timing creates a perfect imagery. Just as the album does, the track dies off with the ticking of a clock as the members leave the stage.
The clock starts counting up afterwards leading into the encore beginning with a tour and album recap of Entertainment, which Knight claims is one of the most important albums to him. In this video, fans are shown at concerts, the band is shown playing the shows as well as filming some of the music videos while the track ‘Crybaby’ plays in the background.
After this video, the band begins their encore with ‘Entertainment 2019’ which is another way for them to reclaim an album released under their old label. These tracks were on Spotify until the label had them removed, and they can now only be found via third party YouTube accounts. Visuals are also strong with this, making it somewhat look like the venue is falling apart as the introduction plays, before dying down completely as the audience recites the introduction to the ‘TANTRUM’ portion of the medley. Towards the end of this medley, the visuals come out of the screen as Rocha had done in earlier tracks on the set list, and help to create an amazing summary of the album.
‘Stupid for You’ is another staple song that allowed a ton of people their fist introduction to the band. The song, visually, is filled with yellows as a nod to the line ‘You’re yellow, I’m natural blue’ which is itself a nod to the band’s track ‘I’m a Natural Blue’ before they had even gotten signed.
The last track on the DVD, ‘Turbulent’ was the first to be released before the FANDOM album was released. Having been previously ‘leaked’ by Knight on Instagram, the track made fans excited for a slightly more aggressive tone from the band, which is also seen in the visuals on the DVD. The visuals for this track go back to the green colors, as the crowd sings along with Knight. The song is played differently from the album in the best ways possible. Emphazing the guitars and providing exciting drums keeps the crowd hyped and leaving them on a great note and memories that will last a long time. After the end of this track, however, the band redoes the ending and Knight calls for the pit to open and the cameras jump from crowd to band as the excitement picks up and eventually dies off as the track slowly does and viewers see the ‘Thank you for coming by, Today was a really good day’ which is displayed after every show.
As the end credits play, viewers can see a ton of backstage shenanigans of the band, and the soft music that was playing during the end credits are once again played here. In the film as a whole, the visuals and the mixing of the music are absolutely incredible especially with the budget and resources they had. Rocha had even said in a Twitch stream of his that the entire film was edited in Final Cut Pro on an Apple computer.
The film is absolutely incredible in every aspect, and is definitely something new when it comes to these films. There has yet to be a live film that goes to the lengths that this one did in the sound design, mixing and visuals as we’ve seen here, and it makes fans wonder what’s next for this band.
Alex Davidson