Review: Conan Gray Wows a Packed House at Hard Rock Live

I once read that the reason the Beatles stopped performing concerts was that John, Paul, George, and Ringo couldn’t hear themselves play over the shrieks of their screaming fans. If Beatles shows were anywhere close to as loud as Monday night’s sold-out Conan Gray Wishbone Pajama concert at Hard Rock Live, I can understand why the Fab Four stopped touring.

For ninety minutes last night, over the course of twenty songs, the plethora of Coneheads in attendance, mostly teenage girls, raised the decibel level to earth-shattering levels, singing along to every one of Conan Gray’s confessional pop lyrics.

The night started at 8 p.m. with a few screams for opener Hemlocke Springs. The North Carolina performer sang a bedroom dance pop backed by a keyboardist and drummer producing peppy beats reminiscent of early video games. As Hemlocke Springs ballroom danced with her drummer and introduced her biggest hit, “Girlfriend”, there were some hints of the loud volume to come.

It was between sets when the crowd’s enthusiasm really started to ratchet up. Some roadies lifted up their arms to elicit cheers and to start a wave, but when Olivia Rodrigo‘s song “Brutal” started to play, the crowd began singing along louder than the volume of the venue’s state-of-the-art speakers. By 9 p.m., when the house lights dimmed, and a screen flashed the words “The Wishbone Pajama Tour”, the crowd noise went to full blast. The stage illuminated to reveal a band of seven women dressed in sailor outfits playing their instruments, standing on a stage set up to look like a rural Kansas prairie, complete with a weather vane. That’s when Conan Gray bicycled on to the stage to a buzz much louder than any Midwestern cicada swarm. Conan checked a faux mailbox as he went into the opener, “My World.”

There is no way to review Conan Gray’s singing performance for that song or any other on this night, because his voice was drowned out throughout by his fans’ enthusiasm. Any time you thought the screams couldn’t get any louder, Conan would wholesomely wave his hand, and the howls would grow even more extreme.

There was plenty of spectacle to go along with the sing-along. The night was divided into four acts, each introduced with a phrase you might read in a fortune cookie like “a wishbone never breaks even” or “I took the long way to realization”.

The stage crew was kept busy in the shadows, moving giant props like the world’s most comfortable-looking bed and a wooden rowboat on and off the stage. But the biggest attraction was the Texan headliner who had the room shrieking at the palm of his hands. Unsurprisingly, the biggest cheers were for his biggest hits. When he donned an acoustic guitar to strum along to “Heather,” it might have been the evening’s peak screams.

There were plenty of laughs when Gray picked out an audience member in an apple costume to choose the next song if she pulled off the bigger portion of a wishbone. The apple accomplished it and won the right to select “Sunset Tower.” Later, Gray introduced “Vodka Cranberry” by saying, “This is my last song and I’m totally not coming back.” He then let out a theatrical wink that played on the giant screens above the stage.

The room went dark long enough for the crowd to chant “Conan! Conan!” and for the object of their affection to make a final costume change. He came out in a glittery, sequined military outfit that only the most confident military dictator could pull off as he sang his final two numbers, “Memories” and “Caramel.” He then took a final bow to some final screams.     

Setlist:

“My World”
“Never Ending Song”
“Bourgeoisieses”
“Wish You Were Sober”
“Class Clown”
“People Watching”
“The Cut That Always Bleeds”
“Eleven Eleven”
“Nauseous”
“Romeo”
“This Song”
“Sunset Tower”
“Heather”
“Family Line”
“Connell”
“Actor”
“Maniac”
“Vodka Cranberry”
“Memories”
“Caramel”