French artist M83 made their way to Dallas, touring their latest album, Fantasy, which was released in March of this year.
M83 is an electronic music group, originally formed by lead singer Anthony Gonzalez. During the past two decades, they have released nine studio albums and have been nominated for many awards. The touring band is made up of Gonzalez, Joe Berry (piano/synthesizer/EWI /saxophone), Kaela Sinclair (keyboard/vocals), Clément Libes (bass/violin), Julien Aoufi (drums), and Théophile Antolinos (guitar). A lot of their music has been used in various film and television projects. In 2012, they even composed a soundtrack for Joseph Kosinski’s film Oblivion. Their style of music could be described as dream pop or new wave. They are known for sonically grand albums where they utilize synthesizers and other electronic instruments.
Opening for M83 was experimental artist Rachika Nayar who is based in Brooklyn, New York. Earlier this year, Nayer released an expanded version of her 2021 release, Fragments. After Nayar’s thirty-minute set, M83 was warmly welcomed by excited fans. They opened their show with the first three songs in order from their latest album, Fantasy. Those songs are “Water Deep,” “Oceans Niagara,” and “Amnesia.” After “Oceans Niagara,” Gonzalez thanked everyone for being there and told the audience that they haven’t changed a bit since the last time they toured in Dallas. The band also played some older songs, “Run Into Flowers” and “Gone” from their 2003 album Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, before playing the title track from Fantasy.
About mid-set, they played “Don’t Save Us From the Flames” from Before the Dawn Heals Us. Soon after, the band performed “Wait” from the Grammy-Award nominated album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. “Wait” was featured in the movie adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in our Stars. They played a few more songs, several being from Fantasy, before closing with another track from Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, “My Tears Are Becoming a Sea.”
Before saying their final goodbye, the team came back out for a final encore. They started strong with “Midnight City,” a song used in the 2013 film Warm Bodies. They then played “Mirror” and closed for the final time with “Outro.” In 2015 and 2016, “Outro” was used as the opening theme for the TV drama Versailles. M83’s unique sound and incredible talent resulted in selling out the House of Blues in Dallas.
Their North American tour will carry on until mid-May before heading over to London for a few shows this summer.
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