Photos by Levi Robson
Daniel Caesar did his first of two sold out nights at the Vogue Theatre on Sunday on his Freudian World Tour, and the packed venue came prepared to embrace Caesar into Vancouver and belt out every word back to him.
After a DJ set to get the crowd warm and the crowd eagerly awaiting Caesar’s late entrance to the stage, he finally made it to the stage to a sea of cell phones trying to capture his every move.
His stage was set up in all white everything which included an elevated platform for Caesar, to every instrument on stage, including the microphone stand, and even down to the speakers to give the light show an even better effect. Caesar was the only thing on stage not in white which focused even more attention on him, making him stand out even more than he already was.
“Sing it,” he said to the crowd getting right into the sing along portion of the show with “Best Part,” and the crowd going absolutely insane when Caesar hit the first note of the song. Vancouver showed him the love he deserves singing an entire verse without any vocals from Caesar.
With only one commercial album in is catalogue, Caesar’s set was relatively short which seemed to make the crowd hang onto every word that spilled out of his mouth. The audience was swaying in unison for the majority of the show almost getting hypnotized by the singer in front of them.
Throughout the night, Caesar would make little triumphant comments to the crowd with things like, “Straight out the basement goddamn,” giving a little “WooHoo” after that made the audience jump and scream for him almost in a proud way.
He stayed on his platform for just over half of his set playing songs like “Hold Me Down,” and “Take Me Away,” before briefly exiting the stage and coming down from his platform and hopping from the stage to greet the audience as you could see everyone push as much as they could to get a chance to brush his hand. He seemed to energize the crowd so easily over a generally low key set with the crowd going crazy over something as simple as him picking up his guitar.
Caesar got the entire audience belting out the words to songs like “Transform,” and “We Find Love.” This show had a consistent chill tempo but the crowd never failed to keep up the energy and excitement around Daniel Caesar as he went into to his final song before the encore, “Blessed,” which brought a choir of Vancouverites singing, “Yes I’m a mess but I’m blessed to be stuck with you.”
“Vancouver you held me down tonight,” he said before exiting the stage prior to the encore.
As the crowd poised for Caesar’s return to the stage for the encore, chants of “Daniel” rang out through the theatre and lights were going off that were in sync with those chants. He came back to the stage to the opening eerie tone to his hit song off of Freudian, “Get You” and as soon as that first note hit, the audience knew what was coming and brought the energy of the show to new heights. This song saw Vancouverites singing off-key to the hook, “ooh who would’ve thought I’d get you.” Despite Vancouver being off-key for that, there was something imperfectly beautiful about that moment that captured the entire show in that one song.
Caesar’s set was short but sweet and Vancouver loved every second of it, watching him maneuver the stage with the eyes of a hawk, and the longevity of the set still managed to send Vancouverites home feeling satisfied with their Daniel Caesar experience.
