He’s been away from the road for several years so BoyWithUke’s Burnout World Tour attracted an eager audience to Arizona Financial Theatre on Thursday. As with his last major tour, the crowd was truly a hodgepodge of all ages, with many parents toting their kids and a plethora of teenagers taking up the majority of the barricade. This is Charley Yang’s final tour under the BoyWithUke moniker before embarking on his next musical chapter, so it was not a show that fans would want to miss.
Piano virtuoso Ethan Bortnick opened the show and immediately captivated the audience with his fast and furious skills on the keys. Backed by a stellar band, it was Bortnick’s prodigious playing that kept the spotlight as he blended those classic talents with an ear for pop hooks as well. Genre was simply a suggestion to Bortnick, with his musical creations defying convention and keeping the crowd mesmerized until he left the stage.
Bigger stages means bigger production and for BoyWithUke, this gave him space to stretch out with a brand new live band, blinding LED screens and a vast playground for him to quite literally sprint around. Previously hidden behind his signature LED mask, Yang is now only masked with dark shades at the beginning of his set before baring his face and his soul through his music. Opening with “Burn” and “Paper Planes”, Yang guided his audience through his most recent album- one that doesn’t hold back on emotional depth after his last breakup.
Those viral TikTok moments that really catapulted Yang into stardom have allowed the multi-instrumentalist to craft his most honest body of work yet and bring it to larger audiences across the world. Phoenix was the kickoff for the North American leg of the world tour and not even first night technical difficulties could prevent Yang and his fans from enjoying every moment to the fullest. He was energetic and candid, preferring to spend most of the set running back and forth across the stage while also swapping between keys and guitar throughout.
Burnout also afforded more acoustic moments in the set, with Yang seated through “Petrichor” before jumping back up to play Fishing With Fans- where he cast a line into the audience to pull up one lucky fan for the first notes of the final half of the performance. While the mask did not make a reappearance for this show, his older material certainly did and the fans went crazy for “Migraine” and “IDGAF”. Yang has been through his own tribulations since the beginning of his musical career and that honestly lent more dimension to this latest tour- a depth that was visibly appreciated by the older fans in the room.
All too soon, the energy of the night swept the audience to the final few songs and the crowd was singing even louder to close out “Love Lost” and “Easier”. This tour was also treated to an unreleased song for the encore- just a taste of Yang’s next endeavor and the perfect teaser to get the fans even more fired up for what’s to come. The show- just like Yang’s onstage presence- was a sprint from start to finish and fans left the theatre breathless and already eager for his next visit to the Valley.
