Photos & Words By: Haley Pagenkopf
On Monday, June 17th, blackbear (Matthew Musto) brought his ‘Dead 2 The World’ Tour to the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. The 26-date North American leg of the tour kicked off in Vancouver on May 16th and wrapped in Las Vegas on June 23rd. Bear isn’t quite finished with taking this show on the road just yet. The 25-date European leg begins on September 23rd in Oslo, Norway and will end in Manchester, UK on October 30th.
The ‘Dead 2 The World’ Tour is in support of blackbear’s newest studio album ‘ANONYMOUS’ which was released in full on April 26th, 2019. Of course he would bring a number of these new tracks on the road with him. His set was opened with ‘HEARTBROKEN’ before more songs from the album like ‘HATE MY GUTS’, DRUG DEALER’, ‘1 SIDED LOVE’ and ‘CHANGES’ were performed throughout the night. Bear’s set also included ‘dirty laundry’, ‘idfc’, ‘90210’ and the title track from his 2015 release titled ‘Deadroses’ in addition to ‘gucci linen’ and ‘playboy shit’ from the album ‘cybersex’ which was released in late 2017. There were also quite a few songs in his set from his early 2017 album ‘digital druglord’ (which is my personal favorite) such as ‘chateau’, ‘hell is where I dreamt of you and woke up alone’, ‘make daddy proud’, ‘i miss the old u’ and ‘wish u the best’. However, he did save the most recognizable track from this album for the very end of the show which is none other than ‘do re mi’.
I can say with complete certainty that Musto knows how to put on an incredible show. From the stage set up, visuals, and lighting production to his high energy performance and the way he interacts with the crowd.
If you haven’t given blackbear or his newest album ‘ANONYMOUS’ a listen yet, be sure to do so and catch a show whenever he’s in a city near you!