Waterparks in “High Definition”

Waterparks, a rock band from Texas, brought the FANDOM Tour to Baltimore. Colored hair, band tees, and lost parents of young concert goers filled up the Baltimore Sound

stage on November 23. Named after their latest album release, “FANDOM,” this tour had sold out eight different locations, Baltimore included. Hip-hop/Rap artist from Texas, De’wayne Jackson, opened for Waterparks.
Jackson brought a lot of energy to the stage at 7:30 p.m. Performing some of his higher energy songs, Jackson jumped around on stage, hyping up the crowd. He performed some crowd favorites like “Family Tree,” “Top Gun,” and “Top Man.” By the end of Jackson’s performance, the crowd was ready for the party that was Waterparks.
Waterparks took the stage with the first track on their new album, “Cherry Red.” This was the perfect song to start the set with as it set the tone and prepared the crowd for what was to come. The band played a perfect mix of old songs with their newest releases. The three band members, Awsten Knight, Geoff Wigington, and Otto Wood, put so much energy into their performance. While Knight and Wigington ran around the stage, Wood put all his energy into playing the drums. The production was absolutely incredible. Smoke machines released smoke right at the perfect moments during the songs. When they played one of their new songs, “Turbulent” the smoke machine released smoke and confetti was. Seeing how that was their final song for the night, it was fitting.

This band has a unique stage presence. On either side of the stage were sets of naked mannequins. During certain songs, the mannequins’ eyes would glow red. When Knight got an acoustic guitar, he started out that part of the show by saying, “Oh, boy. He’s got an acoustic guitar.” He made a few jokes and said, “Here’s a new song for you guys.” He proceeded to play the National Anthem, causing the entire crowd to burst into song, singing the lyrics. He just smiled, but when people started crowd surfing to it, he stopped playing and said, “Are people seriously crowd surfing to this?” He continued playing the National Anthem, which then led to “Happy Birthday” being sung about five times throughout the set. Knight also played parts of “Stacy’s Mom” on an acoustic guitar and joked about the crowd starting a circle pit, which ended up happening. Eventually, Knight started playing their own songs again, leading into their song called “21 Questions.” Around the end of the song, Wigington and Wood came back on stage and joined him, finishing up the song and continuing into more songs.
While Waterparks performed, security was catching crowd surfers and making sure everyone was safe. Knight thanked the security guards, told the crowd to cheer them on, and then asked the security guards if they were focused enough to catch a lot of crowd surfers at once. They said they were, so Knight told the crowd that he wanted as many crowd surfers as they could get during the next song which was their song “[REBOOT].” The crowd gave Knight exactly what he wanted; a lot of crowd surfers. Knight’s neon green hair glowed under the lights of the venue as the crowd surfers did their thing. It was a an ocean of bodies being carried toward the front of the stage to be caught by the hard-working security guards.

Knight also invited Jackson, and a few of the band’s team members on stage to thank them. He said that Jackson was going to be one of the most famous artists in the next ten years and that the crowd should go buy merchandise because it would be worth a lot in the future. Knight stopped at one point to thank the crowd as well, saying, “We’ve played shows legitimately when we were local to four people back in Texas. So, the fact that this s—t can happen and that its sold out… It’s super f—king weird, but it’s really cool, so I’m very glad you’re all here. Thank you for doing that.”
The three-piece band from Texas put on an energetic show that showcased just how much it meant to them for people to come see them. Before their encore, the group played a mini movie about how happy they were with how their second album, “Entertainment” turned out and how much love it got. They continued to give the concert goers everything they had up to the very last second. Knight took to Twitter after the show and said, “Baltimore, that was one of my favorite shows of all time. Might even have been top 10. Amazing!” Of course, the tweet was in Knight’s signature all-caps.
Waterparks just want to create music. They are not afraid to try new things when it comes to music. In their song “Watch What Happens Next,” Knight sings, “Hip hop can do whatever it wants/Like make country songs and hit number one/ And that’s f—king awesome, we could never do that/ All the fans that like us need an easy f—king format,” about how many people dislike when bands change their sound. However, Waterparks never disappoints when they switch up their sound.

If you are looking for a high-energy concert to go to, Waterparks is the way to go. They give it all they have. They appreciate people coming out to see them. They love meeting fans. Find them on Twitter and Instagram at @waterparks. You can also listen to them on Spotify, Google Music, and Apple Music. This band has a song for every mood you can think of. Give them a listen.