As the stage lights began to flash, 7,000 of Conan Gray’s fans knew what was about to happen. The crowd erupted when Conan sang the intro to his title track, “Found Heaven”. Then the black curtain with the Found Heaven symbol fell, revealing Conan Gray. After waiting 7.5 hours for the show, I can say that it was one hundred percent worth it after I ended up right behind VIP in the third row.
For background knowledge, Conan Gray has been an internet figure since he was fourteen when he started his YouTube channel. On his YouTube, he showed off much of his art and made many videos of him cooking. His YouTube videos began to grow after he sang covers of other artists, such as the song “Sweater Weather”, “Radio”, and “Video Games”. He wrote his first songs in his senior year of high school into his freshman year of college. He came out with his single, called “Grow” and his EP, Called “Sunset Season”. He quit YouTube, dropped out of UCLA, and continued his music career. He released his first full album, “Kid Krow” in 2019. Kid Krow has his most successful song, called “Heather”. Heather became so popular that many fans associate December 3rd with the song because of the lyrics “I still remember, the third of December, me in your sweater, you said it looked better on me than it did you”. It became a day for people to receive a sweater from their boy/girlfriend. He then made an album called “Superache”, which was released in 2021. Its most popular tracks are “Memories“,” People Watching”, and “Astronomy”. His newest release, “Found Heaven”, did not end up being as successful as his other albums because he changed his style of music. ”Found Heaven” sounds somewhat like 80s synth-pop, which is very different from his other albums. My favorite track on “Found Heaven” is called “Alley Rose.”, which is about his first-ever breakup.
The concert was for general admission only, so we decided to leave at 10 in the morning to wait for a spot at the barricade. In all honesty, the workers were not very helpful, as they told us that the gate we were waiting at was open when it wasn’t. Around 12, we finally ended up in the correct area and we got wristbands, only the first 300 people got them. We sat around and waited until around 3:00, which was when we went to get early merch inside of the venue, The Skyline Stage at The Mann. After early merch, we continued to wait until the doors opened. Many fans, including me, traded bracelets with each other before the doors opened. Around 6:30 pm, the doors opened and they began to let people into the venue by wristband number. I was number 192, so I was in the 5th group to be let in. I didn’t end up at the barricade because of the VIP fans, but I ended up in the third row.
Around 7:00, the British singer Maisie Peters began her opening set with the song “Your Just a Boy (and I’m Kinda the Man)”. She continued her set with “Body Better”, a cover of “Holding Out For a Hero”, “Love Him I Don’t”, “John Hughes Movie”, “Not Another Rockstar”, and “The Band and I”. Then, she sang her surprise song of the night, “Holy Revival”, where she had the crowd sing one part of the song. She ended her set with “History of Man” and “Lost the Breakup”.
After Maisie Peters finished her set, there were 30 minutes until Conan Gray came on stage. After anxiously waiting, everyone cheered and screamed out of excitement when the stage lights began to flash, and when the curtain fell. Conan Gray was wearing his silver leather outfit, and he opened with the third track on “Found Heaven”, “Fainted Love”. The excitement built even more when he started walking over to the right side of the stage, which was where I was. He went into the first single of “Found Heaven”, “Never Ending Song” During the song’s ending, all of his fans did the dance that he did at the end of the music video. The third song of the night was “Wish You Were Sober”, from his first album. After he finished the song, the rest of the curtains on the stage fell when he sang the first verse of “Eye Of The Night”, which revealed two large stars that lit up. After “Eye Of The Night”, He transitioned into the song “Killing Me”. He counted the crowd off so they could jump during the verse after the bridge. The next song was “The Exit”, the first song of the night from his second album, “Superache”. Then, he took time to read some fan’s signs. One was about him being added to a children’s game called Toca Boca over the summer. Another sign said, “I love you, Justin Bieber”. He has had an ongoing joke about Justin Bieber since his first album. He sang the song “Baby” by Justin Bieber because of the sign. Someone’s sign said it was her birthday, so Conan, along with the rest of the crowd, sang to her. He used this to transition into the song “People Watching”. The next song was “The Cut That Always Bleeds”, and he performed a smooth transition into “Jigsaw”. The entire crowd went teary-eyed during the next song, “Family Line”, which is about his rough upbringing and his family issues. After “Family Line”, he gave a speech before my favorite song by him, “The Story”. He spoke about how you need to keep going even if things get bad. He sang “The Story”, and he let the crowd sing multiple lyrics. After the story, he sang his unreleased song called “Holidays” which has only been played in one other city. He concluded this small section of sad songs with “Astronomy”, which is about the fear of losing his best friend Ashley. During the song, Conan came over to our side of the stage and pointed right at me during the lyric“From far away, I wish I’d stayed with you”. He sang the songs “Found Heaven”, “Boys & Girls (Another one of my favorite songs),” Lonely Dancers”, and “Winner”, which are all songs from “Found Heaven”. He sang his most popular song “Heather” with the original extra third verse that isn’t sung in the regular song. He sang “Memories”, and then left the stage for several minutes.
He came back onto the stage during the beginning of the song “Bourgeoisieses”, which is an incorrect spelling of the word “Bourgeoisie”. Every show, he makes a new tank top with a poorly spelled version of the word bourgeoisieses. The tank top for the night said “Boogieyoiseesays”, which I can’t pronounce. The second to last song he sang was “Maniac”, his second most popular song. He closed the show by telling us to “don’t leave him hanging”, which was a reference to the closing song, “Alley Rose”. During “Alley Rose”, confetti was released throughout the pit, and I got covered in the confetti shaped like the symbol for “Found Heaven”; a teardrop with a star on it. The confetti was colored in his favorite colors, red, yellow, and blue (the primary colors).
Conan Gray has been my favorite artist for over a year, and it is safe to say that this was one of the best nights of my life. I am looking forward to when he decides to come back to Philadelphia, but for now, I can let this night “stay in my memories”.
