Seattle to the core, ODESZA preps for historic hometown blowout at Climate Pledge Arena

A funny thing used to happen to the ODESZA guys. Back in the Washington electronic duo’s early days, before the online buzz blossomed into packed concert halls and Grammy nominations, it wasn’t uncommon for local fans at some of their first shows to be a little confused about the Bellingham-formed, Seattle-based group’s geographic origins.

“It was funny,” Harrison Mills recalled in 2019, “in Seattle, people all thought we were from Australia. We would get asked all the time after our show, ‘Where are you guys from?’ I live six blocks from this venue.”

Yeah, that hasn’t happened in a while.

Over the past decade, ODESZA has grown into an electronic music juggernaut defying categorization — a ticket-selling, dance music force that raised the live performance bar for electronic artists while flourishing outside of the mainstream.

This spring, the college buddies since their Western Washington University days made a splash when they announced “The Last Goodbye,” ODESZA’s first album in five years, arriving July 22. The group’s post-lockdown comeback tour would get a jump-start with a Climate Pledge Arena date, but as tickets were quickly gobbled up, two more shows were added.