Photos & Words By: Haley Pagenkopf
On Thursday, July 25th, Jon Bellion brought the Glory Sound Prep Tour to The Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Missouri with special guests Marc E. Bassy and Lawrence. Starting the night off was the eight-piece band Lawrence, lead by siblings Clyde and Gracie Lawrence. Their set included lots of brass, giving it the crowd a new aged jazz sound. Lawrence is a band that sounds amazingly talented in the recorded versions of their songs, but the recordings don’t give their talent as much justice as their live performance does. They performed songs ‘Shot’ and ‘Do You Wanna Do Nothing with Me?’ from their 2017 album ‘Breakfast’ as well as ‘Make a Move’ and ‘More’ from their 2018 album titled ‘Living Room’. Also performed by the band was their recently released single ‘Casualty’.
After Lawrence performed, up next was Marc E. Bassy. Marc is an artist that I am more familiar with. His song ‘Plot Twist’ is a favorite of mine that can be found in a lot of my go-to playlists. I was excited about him opening up his ten song set with it. Also from the 2017 album ‘Gossip Columns’ he performed ‘You & Me’ which is one of many songs Marc and G-Eazy have collaborated on. He then brought a few songs from his 2018 EP titled ‘Postmodern Depression’ to the stage including the songs ‘Simma’ which originally featured Guapdad 4000 as well as ‘Supply’, and ‘Love Her Too’ another song that includes a feature from G-Eazy. Additionally ‘Dirty Water’ and ‘Morning’ were also played from his 2016 EP titled ‘Groovy People’ along with ‘Some Kind of Drug’ by G-Eazy which features Bassy. Marc didn’t stop there either, he went onto perform his 2019 singles ‘Save Me’ and ‘Die Hard’. Marc E. Bassy is an all around talented artist in more ways than one, between his voice, his stage presence and his ability to engage with the crowd, Bassy was a pleasure to watch and I will be seeing him in the future for sure.
Both Marc and Lawrence got the sold out crowd hyped up and moving, but that was nothing compared to the energy and excitement that the venue was filled with when Jon Bellion made his appearance on stage that night, walking out to the song ‘JT’ from his newest album ‘Glory Sound Prep’ in which the tour was named after. With the tour being named after the album, it’s no surprise that it’s songs were what his set mainly consisted of. Included on the setlist from the 2018 album were songs ‘Let’s Begin’, ‘Couples Retreat’, ‘The Internet’, ‘Adult Swim’, ‘Blu’, ‘Conversations with my Wife’, ‘Stupid Deep’ and ‘Cautionary Tales’ which he ended his set with before returning for two encores.
Jon Bellion’s 2016 album ‘The Human Condition’ was the album from him that had caught my attention and even to this day I would still say is one of my favorite albums of all time. Hearing ‘Overwhelming’, ‘All Time Low’ and ‘Guillotine’ was definitely a highlight of the night for me since this was my first time getting to see Jon Bellion live. Also from ‘The Human Condition’ was one of his two encore songs ‘Woke The F*ck Up’. The last song performed before the show officially came to a close was ‘Good Things Fall Apart’ which is a song by ILLENIUM that Jon features on.
While the North American part of this tour wrapped on August 11th in Baltimore, Maryland, The Glory Sound Prep Tour will be heading to Europe in late September through early October and to Australia in November. If you ever see Jon Bellion stopping in a city near you, please go and have your mind blown by all of the talent that this man and his band possesses.
Check out Jon Bellion (@jonbellion), Marc E. Bassy (@marcebassy), and Lawrence (@lawrencetheband) on their social media’s and more importantly, be sure to check out all of their music on your favorite listening platform.