Review: Pentatonix at HBF Stadium

Pentatonix at HBF Stadium
w/ Bella Taylor Smith
Monday, March 20, 2023

Pentatonix, the multiple Grammy Award-winning a cappella quintet and YouTube darlings, performed in Perth for the first time on Monday as part of a world tour promoting their new album The Lucky Ones.

Like many bands, an album tour is a balancing act of showcasing the new works for sale, while pleasing the crowd with well-known favourites. This balance is further complicated when the group is best known for their Christmas carols… and it's March. 

The result was a two act show, where the first half encouraged the audience to sit back and just appreciate the incredible skills. Each member illustrated their musical role in opening pop hit Sing, such as Mitch Grassi’s amazing high notes (his range is A2 to B7!), Kevin Olusola’s beat boxing and Matt Sallee’s smooth bass line. A new album medley showcased their new releases, including pop hit Love Me When I Don’t.

The ‘bridging act’ was built on audience participation, as the crowd were taught to sing Ed Sheeran’s Shiver chorus in a three part harmony for TikTok. This transitioned the crowd into a more participatory mood, now encouraged to clap along, get up, and dance. 

The second half was a ‘best of Pentatonix’ playlist including Hallelujah, Shallow, Daft Punk, White Winter Hymnal (with the clapping routine from the music video), and Bohemian Rhapsody.

An unexpected highlight was a solo piece by beatboxer Kevin Olusola, as he shared his origin story of joining the group via YouTube while studying medicine at Yale (imagine telling the parents that career change decision!). He also shared his love of the cello, wowing the audience with his electric cello prowess with Bach’s Prelude while beatboxing at the same time (called celloboxing), and an inspired interpretation of Beethoven's 5th.

Where Pentatonix also differ from a traditional stadium concert is that you really don’t want the audience to sing along. Their performance point of difference is the precise attention to note and harmony, which would be spoiled by 4,000 untrained voices joining in. The ingenious solution on this evening was a dedicated sing along section, a chorus medley of pop hits (Backstreet Boys, The Temptations, The Monkees, Journey etc)… with the volume up high to mask our screeching vocals.

Pentatonix have been performing together for over a decade now and the experience shows with perfect harmonies and timing. They move seamlessly together, both vocally and with their stage awareness and song transitions – they are a well-oiled machine. However the cheesy dance moves did start feeling dated and should probably be left to boy band reunion tours.

Commendation goes to warm up act Bella Taylor Smith (winner of The Voice Australia 2021), promoting her new single A Long Time Coming which was released this week. Bella’s sweet and simple vocals were a nice fit for the family friendly Pentatonix audience, with the opportunity giving Bella some much-needed concert experience as she learns her stagecraft.

Overall Pentatonix was a remarkable demonstration of vocal dexterity, culminating in an enjoyable, but unremarkable concert.

MELISSA MANN

Photos by Bronwen Caple Photography