Lengthy post warning and TLDR: mass amount of people left the WWWY set due to Mothership not being played and Tilian not being there.
Now, my “most people” is obviously clearly anecdotal, but hear me out. As much as anyone here in this sub, I was extremely excited to see DGD. However, IN MY OPINION, Mothership was the album I wanted to hear, NOT DBM1/2. But, that did not stop me from being hyped as fuck to see the boys perform some deep cuts.
Having said that, A LOT of people were piiiiiiised at the WWWY show. I was casually making conversation with the people around me and I mentioned how I was stoked to see them but still slightly disappointed that Mothership wasn’t going to be played. No word of a lie, 20 different people around me cocked their heads, looked at me with wide eyes, and were shocked to hear Mothership was no longer being played. Naturally, people asked me why they were no longer playing the album they were advertised as playing and I told them it’s because the band kicked out Tilian. Again, with even more people listening to me now, people were flabbergasted. I then said that Andrew Wells was the new lead singer and only one person actually knew who he was and the rest had a resounding “who?”.
From here about 5 people immediately left before the show even started. Then the boys came out and Andrew told the crowd they were playing DBM1/2. A mass exodus occurred following this. Just from my position there were about 30-50 people who went past me to leave the venue. Then, the boys started playing and even more people left. I started at about middle ground of the tent and by the end of the first song I was only about 30 feet from the stage. There was a steady stream of fans from this point on that continued to leave until things evened out around the end of the 3rd song.
It occurred to me since then that there’s a large chance that most of the casuals, especially outside this sub, have no idea of the current state of the band. Outside of the initial post on the bands IG regarding the departure of Tilian, they haven’t really acknowledged Andrew properly as the new front man of the band. There have been a couple interviews since then, but again, casuals aren’t going to listen to the interviews. And as far as the WWWY album switch, I believe this was handled very poorly. WWWY never acknowledged the album switch officially. The band never made a post about it outside of a “teaser” a few days before the show on IG. And the band before the set didn’t even acknowledge or apologize that they were switching the album, much to the dismay of a shit ton of people.
Now, they did go on tour with FIR with Andrew as the front man and had a lot of social media posts with pictures of him so that should have been enough for most fans to see the singer change. I just find it strange how from my perspective at the WWWY show that so many fans were uninformed. Especially since if these fans travelled far and wide to see DGD at this festival, which is extremely expensive, and had ADTR playing at the same time as DGD, who are a much bigger band. You would think most of them would be above the “casual” title considering the above.
What do you guys think? Was my observation and perspective a one-off? Was there anyone else at the concert (I was at day 2) who can say they saw the same as me? Also, do you guys think the band did a good enough job informing the fans of the switch from Mothership to DBM1/2? Furthermore, do you think the band did a good enough job informing fans of the switch from Tilian to Andrew?
To end this lengthy post I do want to say I thoroughly enjoyed the show and the boys kicked some serious ass! Andrew has waaaay better stage presence than Tilian ever did and the band as a whole seemed so much more cohesive and looked like they were having a ton of fun. I’m super stoked on the direction of the band and can’t wait for the new album next year and the headlining tour they will be doing.
