Amusement & Muses: A Live Recap of Bastille Presents "Ampersand" in Los Angeles
What if you could end your day doing the shit you love with the ones you love? Better yet, what if you could do that two days in a row? For many Bastille fans, they had the opportunity to do just that as they attended the first (and most likely the only) run of U.S. tour dates for the Bastille-adjacent project entitled “Ampersand,” which took place Friday, November 22nd and Saturday, November 23rd at the grandiose United Theater on Broadway (FKA The Theatre at Ace Hotel).
If you want the TLDR version of the concerts, songwriter and lead vocalist of Bastille Dan Smith can sum up the evenings in three points; “For the sake of argument, I didn’t shit myself, I barely talked between songs, and the French was perfect,” he told the Los Angeles theater.
But if you want the longer story, take a walk with me through these songs as I unreliably narrate these gigs.
Stepping back to introduce the Ampersand project, this collection of songs puts a spotlight on Smith’s storytelling craft as he examines the lives of famous and infamous historical or mythological figures. The name “Ampersand” comes from all of the stories on the album being comprised of a pairing and song titles that all include a (you guessed it) &— Take the track “Zheng Yi Sao & Questions For Her” or “Seasons & Narcissus,” the former of which opens with the question “What if you could end your days doing the shit you love with the ones you love?” to call it back to my introduction.
Ampersand taking the stage
Ampersand came to be a side quest for Smith on what was slated to be a year off for the members of Bastille, so as he began to weave together these stories, Dan enlisted the assistance of other songwriters and vocalists to build out the musical arrangements. Two of those musicians include Moira Mack and Charlie Barnes, so it only made sense that in addition to performing in the live Ampersand band, Moira & Charlie (see what I did there?) opened up the shows on Friday and Saturday night, respectively.
Moira Mack opening up the show
Ahead of Mack’s set on Friday evening, Smith tested out his chops as MC to recall how he’d first stumbled upon Moira Mack on a night out in Los Angeles where he heard her performing a cover of “(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. It’s rare that supporting acts will get a personalized introduction from the headlining performers, so with Dan’s glowing endorsement, I knew we’d be in for a treat with Moira’s performance. Spoiler alert; we got a goosebump-inducing reenactment of the Redding cover that started it all, which really let the soulful and powerful facets of Mack’s vocal abilities shine. However, the rest of her set included her original songs, some of which were unreleased and included one written only days prior to the gig, in response to the devastating election results. In just a short thirty minutes, Moira was able to demonstrate her emotive songwriting and vast vocal range, including silky and delicate falsettos that smoothly transitioned into bolder and richer textures.
Speaking of smooth transitions, the stage was quickly turned over for Dan & Moira to return for the main event, alongside the rest of the Ampersand live band members Charlie Barnes, Merrick Winter, AK Patterson, and Florrie.
Fittingly, the set began with the first track from the album called “Intros & Narrators,” in which Smith confesses he never wanted to be the main character and sings “Maybe to me, other stories are more interesting and maybe to me, they’re a mirror back on everything/So much bigger, bolder, braver than I’ll ever be,” which set up the aforementioned premise of this project in a musical format. Dan addressed the crowd after the introductory song, saying, “This album is a collection of stories about people that I think are fascinating, mostly real, some fictional or mythological,” also pointing out that each person was illustrated on the stage backdrop with artwork done by Harriet Bruce.
In addition to bringing in new live band members and collaborating with visual artists for this special project, Smith has also endeavored into the podcasting realm to provide more context to the Ampersand songs. Entitled “Muses: An Ampersand Podcast,” the show features Smith and co-host Emma Nagouse diving into the background of the people and characters that Dan wrote about, and listeners also get a glimpse into his creative process for each tune. Along with being the co-host of the podcast, Nagouse essentially acted as a muse for these songs as well because she suggested several of the figures for Smith to dig into.
One of the subject suggestions from Emma was Paul & Eslanda Robeson, which Dan wrote about on the track “Essie & Paul,” and it instantly became one of my favorites from the album. A hauntingly hypnotic strings arrangement acts as the heartbeat of the song’s melody, which conjured up images of a Bridgerton ballroom scene the first time I heard it. (Funny enough, just this week the music video for “Eve & Paradise Lost” debuted, starring Simone Ashley from Bridgerton, so maybe if we’re lucky maybe we can manifest a feature of “Essie & Paul” in the next season). Throughout the show, Smith essentially gave a quick synopsis of each song’s main character— think CliffsNotes version of the podcast—to give some additional context. He introduced “Essie & Paul” by sharing, “This was really hard to write because it’s about Paul Robeson and Eslanda Robeson who were this fucking incredible power couple. Paul Robeson people know as an actor and singer but he was a civil rights activist and his wife Eslanda was his manager and his friend. She was an anthropologist, she was incredible. It’s quite daunting to write about both of them. I knew the song would never be good enough as a tribute to them but I still wanted to write it cause I thought about them a lot.” For the record, I think he did them justice with the song, and the rest of the audience agreed based off the applause that greeted the band at the end of it. Along with his humility, Smith threw in some humor when setting up the performance of the tune, joking “For this song as you may have noticed, we’ve been playing everything live tonight, apart from this one bit on this song that requires a full string section. We just came from the UK and didn’t have the budget for it, so as well as pretending that there was no terrible rambling chats between songs, the other thing is if people ask ‘how was the gig?’ say it was nuts, they had a full string section that came out for one song! I’ve never seen that before, it was crazy!”
Another standout live performance moment occurred earlier in the setlist with “Drawbridge & The Baroness,” which describes The Drawbridge Dilemma from the baroness’ POV. The song features stunning falsetto vocal chops from Smith as well as a crescendoing bridge that were recognized with extended applause and an affirming “you’re amazing!” from a young audience member. Dan described the song as his favorite one on the album but “a fucking nightmare to sing live” which is fair given the dramatic range he exerts for it—hopefully the audience’s reaction makes it all worth it!
As we journeyed through these stories told in song format, Dan continued to share those behind-the-scenes tidbits with the audience about the songs. It turns out that he’s been writing songs since he was 14 years old, and the album’s anchoring track “Telegraph Road 1977 & 2024” was one of his first songwriting attempts brought on by a poem his dad wrote while traveling around the U.S. in 1977. Smith also confessed that he found out he got some of the French translation wrong for the song “Mademoiselle & the Nunnery Blaze,” BUT circling back to the TLDR version of events, “The French was perfect,” according to Dan.
Now, I did mention this was the longer story journey of the Ampersand shows, but I’ll still spare everyone from diving into each and every song included on the setlist and remind you that you can tune into the Muses podcast to hear it straight from the source. The podcast is currently working its way through the Ampersand songs, but Dan did share that there’s an episode in the works about Bastille’s breakout hit “Pompeii,” which the band was able to fit in a rendition of during this run of shows. The Ampersand setlist also includes a couple of other outliers with a special arrangement of 2016’s “Good Grief” and a version of “Orpheus & Eurydice” that was written for the Netflix show Kaos. Rumor has it that a demo of the latter performed by Charlie Barnes & Dan will be dropping later this week so keep an ear out!
The Ampersand adventure concluded with the single “Blue Sky & The Painter,” which is characteristically upbeat in melody and depressing in lyrics, describing the life of artist Edvard Munch. “This is about Edvard Munch and it’s a really happy one to finish on. It’s about his creativity and depression,” Smith told the crowd ahead of the final song.
Both of the Los Angeles concerts were incredible from a musical performance aspect, adding a special depth and richness to the recorded versions of these stories, but what really stood out to me was how Smith seemed even more relaxed and himself between songs. He did share at the start of the show, “What I’ve realized with these gigs is I think it’s because I’m sitting down and I can’t see anything, I find myself talking the most almighty amount of crap in between songs.” Selfishly, I hope this isn’t the only ever run of Ampersand shows because I want to experience the magic of it all again—including the extra comedic banter and charm from Dan. There are a few remaining Ampersand events on the calendar, and I highly recommend trying to snag tickets if you can!
Check out more photos from the evening below and listen to Ampersand here.
