It’s no shock that the guy who wrote one of the greatest songs about vulnerability has no trouble introducing a performance of it by giving a sermon about how he knows how overwhelming it is to be human in gloomy ol’ 2025, but is confident in the survival tactics needed to get by.

“I don’t think that people get better by isolating them, or by rejecting them, or judging them (…) the only thing that can lead to change is acceptance,” Will Wood reminded a sold-out crowd at Orlando’s Plaza Live last Tuesday night. “You can’t love someone into being lovable. You can’t hate them into fixing them, either.”

Said vulnerable anthem “Skeleton Appreciation Day” conveyed just that: Embracing the hidden, darker parts of our peers, and also encouraging them to do the same with us.

The 32-year-old epic extraordinaire’s second-ever show in Florida—his first taking place 15 minutes down the road at Winter Park’s Conduit only last year—was part of a run celebrating the 10th anniversary of his debut album Everything is a Lot, which introduced his schtick of extra long songs penned with life-saving, yet also often misinterpreted lyrics, and playfully eerie instrumentation. Since then, Wood has become an advocate for mental health following his own diagnosis with bipolar disorder, and has assured a massive following of LGBTQ+ youth especially that no one is ever truly alone.

After an earthquakin’ opening set from Brooklyn indie-rock project Moon Walker, the current Warner Brothers Productions intro music blared across the room, and Wood, rocking rose-tinted John Lennon glasses with a black and white button-down and matching black blazer, kicked things off very softly with “Sex, Drugs, Rock ’n’ Roll.” The first half of the song saw only Wood and his artsy keyboard perched on stage right, just to have his four-piece backing band The Tapeworms, featuring saxophonist Matt Berger, join him in making the initially slow song end in a more electrifying fashion.

The 2022 track, off of his latest studio album In case I make it (stylized “In case I make it,”) has been interpreted as Wood explaining that he’s leaving his past self, riddled with helplessness and unsolved issues, behind as he grows and gets healthier.

Most of Wood’s banter was even directed towards the “one guy” in the crowd that’s struggling immensely. And though he implied that everyone is fighting something right now—whether it’s demons, anxiety, or a physical illness—he swore that the 98-minute show was dedicated to one person only. “I don’t know anything about them except for, there is someone in this room tonight who this morning, woke up in a cold sweat and went ‘fucking Christ, what have I done?’” He quipped, chaining his remarks to those heard in his non-conformist, anti-societal lament “Suburbia Overture/Greetings from Mary Bell Township!/(Vampire) Culture/Love Me, Normally.”

On “The Main Character,” Wood swooped his fluffy brown hair down to veer towards a Jack Skellington-esque baritone on the last verse, and to shun both a fan filming him (“Don’t come at me, don’t point that shit at me,” he improvised), and one who once theorized that the song was about a struggle with narcissistic personality disorder. “I was like ‘fuck you, man! That’s a different song,’” he jeered.

Wood dedicated “Against the Kitchen Floor”—a desperate promise to try and do better in a relationship—to the couples in the crowd, as well as the pairs in attendance who weren’t quite sure of their status, but still feel like something could happen somewhere down the line. And for those in the largely late millennial and Gen-Z-comprised crowd that would die for that kind of love, Wood reassured that death is inevitable anyway on a dark-yet-peppy “Memento Mori: The Most Important Thing in the World.”

Regardless of what one has been through, their thoughts on death, or their relationship status, there are a range of emotions to be felt if you dive deep into Wood’s lyrics. As for melodies and showmanship, that’s a completely different story.

Instrumentally speaking, there’s a whimsical aspect to the sound behind many of Wood’s pieces. Almost as if he were collaborating with any collective orchestrated by Danny Elfman in a Tim Burton stop-motion state of mind. The kooky blend of Berger’s baritone sax bits and drummer Mario Conte’s tambourine was Elfman-esque enough to convince one that “Yes, to Err is Human, So Don’t Be One” could have been performed by the Halloween Town Band heard in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

During the first encore piece, “Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity,” the vibes were so high that bassist DJ Scully literally started a congaline in the crowd. And Wood’s partially-Jewish background popped its head in during the hopeful, almost ragtime-paced “BlackBoxWarrior – Okultra,” which saw him get through the mid-song spoken word bit through a staged, cord home phone call, which still provided a reminder that ideas don’t spread because they’re good.

He wasn’t wrong, either. Learning how to embrace those darker, inner aspects is still hard for some to wrap their heads around, which can make that process a bit of an afterthought when you’re working on your mental health and ways of self-love. But perhaps with time, that acceptance for both others and ourselves Wood was talking about is still capable of rapidly evolving into basic common sense.

Only then can we make every day Skeleton Appreciation Day.

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