The Dial Up Tour featuring LiveLavaLive – REVIEW

The Dial Up tour featuring LiveLavaLive came to the House of Blues in Chicago. With them came Meekakitty, Nanalew, Alex Carpenter, Jason Munday, and Olan Rogers. You can check out our review after the break!

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a tour show quite like The Dial Up Tour. It’s a community gathering for Youtubers and Youtube audiences, but more specifically it is a variety show compiled of Youtube comedians and musicians. All of which have at least 70,000 subscribers on their channel, and a loyal following who can’t wait to see and meet them in person. The tour consisted of Olan Rogers, Meekakitty, Nanalew, LiveLavaLive, Alex Carpenter, and Jason Munday.

The opener of the show was the eccentric and energized Olan Rogers. His Youtube channel is all about his awesomely named Transformer feline friend Starscream, a fantasy mini series, and a whole lot of boisterous story telling. His set started with a small tale about his trip to Chuck-E-Cheese when he was a small Olan. It warmed my heart when he explained the potion like uses of slices of pizza, I related to it deeply. Except it wasn’t pizza in my day, it was rice. Because I’m Asian. His ending story about releasing a food baby into a neighbors yard left all of us at The House of Blues the same color as the venue name because of how much air we lost laughing.

The next act was a duo by their Youtube handles’ Nanalew and Meekakitty. Together they called themselves Nanakitty. They came storming in silver outfits acting out one of their songs called, “Space Crustaceans.” Midway through the song Nanalew, real name Shawna, came out in a crab costume dancing and chasing Meekakitty, real name Tessa, around the stage. Both girls are not only funny, but incredibly charming as they exchange sisterly banter, inside jokes, and sour faces. The only girls of the tour finalized their set by acting out another song in the melody of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” called, “Dirty Hipster.” They sang to a particular white v-necked kid in the crowd, who I’m sure felt awesome. It wasn’t me, though.

As the ladies finished their half hour the room started to murmur in excitement as Mitchell Davis and Kyle Siebert of LiveLavaLive hit the stage. They were accompanied with a screen behind them that served as a way to tell the crowd what part of the show was happening next. The two best friends told the story of how they met Kanye and Jay-Z with a ravishing photo of them hanging out with the hip-hop stars. But after Kyle complained about the photo shop job, Mitchell showed variations of the both of them looking supah fly next to the artists. Another segment that happened was the Q & A section, except they gave it a LiveLavaLive twist. The audience asks them a question, but the questioner has to answer it back. The two were asked where the weirdest places they’ve been naked were and Mitchell told the story of how he had ran outside his front yard naked to be hilarious to his family, only to have them stab his back and lock the doors from the inside. Kyle’s account happened before he was going to shower, he either clogged the toilet, or he found the toilet clogged and decided to try and fix it only to get the plunger covered in fesses and whaling the plunger around like a tennis racket in his back yard. A memorable part of their show that happened came straight out from a few of their videos where they dance to a mix of different tunes from all different genres. “Random Dancing” was what they called it, but it took a large amount of crowd participating. One half of the room was called out as the “veteran dancers” as Mitchell explained it, and the other half were the, “new kids trying to take the other half’s turf.” The dancing commenced, people were bouncin’, LiveLavaLive amped up the audience and in the end one half did win the contest, while the other didn’t. What was the prize? Nothing but a damn good time. Kyle and Mitchell were both hilarious, and overly charming. While Mitchell is more of the animated type, Kyle’s dry humor serves as a compliment to their dynamic. Kyle’s overall frustration with Mitchell’s actions is extremely addicting as Mitchell’s unpredictability leaves a mark on the crowd as, “we feel Kyle’s pain.” Because all of us has had at least one friend that can frustrate the hell out of us, but make us laugh and have a good smile all at the same time.

Last but most certainly not least by any means, was the team of Alex Carpenter and Jason Munday. The only Youtube musicians of the tour brought out guitars, lights sabers, and keyboard synthesizer which I appreciated greatly being a musician and Jedi myself. Little did I know that they were going to perform songs from their band called, “Ministry of Magic.” Which also includes another musician who wasn’t on tour named Luke Conrad. A few of my favorite songs include “Internet Age” which is about meeting someone online and falling in love which I can relate intimately with. Except the stalker part of it. Eherm.  “The Coast” was a nice little sing-a-long number that reminded me of summer. That rhymed. It had a nice marching band groove that left the crowd bouncing. And the song, “Star of Something” had an amazing crowd clap factor. The beat was infectious and the chorus was easy to sing along to, “This could be…the start of something extraordinary.” Alex and Jason were super energetic, rocking out at the highest parts of the songs, and moving around the stage like frantic storm troopers on the Death Star. The dual vocals were a great touch, it was awesome to see that both guys could sing, and sing well. In the middle of the set Alex made it apparent to all of us in the audience that all of us, including them because we’re at a Youtube concert. But I don’t think we’d have in any other way! The crowd got to be in one of Jason’s vlogs so if you were at the Chicago show for Dial Up Tour make sure to watch his videos and look for yourself!

Dial Up Tour was really fun and unique, I’d never been to a comedy, music, variety show. There were tons of crowd interaction and fun moments that the whole community shared. With the Youtube live shows starting to become more and more frequent it’s apparent that the viewer-ship of the site has escalated certain individuals to fame or celebrity status. The community is growing and people are starting recognize the importance of giving fans the opportunity to see their favorite Youtubers live. This tour is the first of many Youtube tours that will feature your favorite internet personalities, where you’ll get a chance to meet them and maybe even discover someone new, or meet a new friend. Check out each and every single Youtuber on the tour and make sure you subscribe!

Information about the review…
Tour: The Dial Up Tour featuring LiveLavaLive
Artists: Mitchell Davis and Kyle Sibert of LiveLavaLive, Meekakitty, Nanalew, Alex Carpenter, Jason Munday, and Olan Rogers
Reviewer: Allen Cruz
Date: January 27, 2012
Venue: House of Blues in Chicago, IL