Concert Review: Panic! at the Disco Pop Up

by Kaitlyn Karlstein

On Thursday, March 22, Panic! At the Disco played a pop-up show at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. As a huge fan of Panic, I knew the day before there was a show happening somewhere in Asbury due to an Instagram video Brendon Urie posted. At noon on the 22nd, Panic’s twitter account tweeted the venue and the times. Wristbands would be sold with tickets and it was first come first serve. Kids in high school and younger did not have school due to the snowstorm earlier that week, so by 12:30 the line was already huge. There was a rumor that only 800-900 tickets were being sold. So naturally, I skipped class, called out of work, and sped to Asbury coming in at ticket number 739! I had gotten on the line at 2:30 and reached the box office at 4:30.

It was just Panic! At the Disco, no opener, so the show started at 9 and ended at 10:30. They mostly played songs off their two most recent albums: “Death of a Bachelor” and “This Is Gospel”. He also played “Say Amen (Saturday Night)” for the second time ever, and for the first time ever “(F**k a) Silver Lining” off the soon to be released album “Pray For the Wicked”. Brendon was playful and joking as he got to relax in a smaller venue and not have to put on such an extravagant show, which he is known to do. It was intimate and lowkey, which made the experience more personal than any of his shows in the past few years. I was disappointed in the lack of older music, I was hoping to hear some songs off “Pretty Odd”. “The Ballad of Mona Lisa” was sung, which was nice because it was the anniversary of the release of “Vices and Virtues” in 2011. And it wouldn’t have been a true Panic! At the Disco show without the classic “I Write Sings Not Tragedies”. It was overall an amazing show and an experience very few will ever have with such a popular band.