Lupe Fiasco concert review
Lupe Fiasco songs on random courtesy of ITunes. Let's get this thing started.
First of all I must say it... I've not seen such disorganization in my life, let alone such security! You litterally had to walk through a meddal detector at the door and then when you got in... good luck knowing where you were going until someone hollered something. And then when my roommate and I were seated we got moved. Thankfully the relocation was better viewing or that would've sucked! So 8:00 rolled around and of course the concert didn't start on time. Do they ever? My roommate and I sat discussing that when finally the lights were dimmed and the concert got started.
The first act up was a rapper who went by the name of I2K. If memory serves correctly he was the winner of a rap contest there at the university. It was difficult to tell how good he was thank to tracks that were pounding louder than his rapping. Nonetheless I think his set lasted about 30 minutes.
There was a brief, and I do mean brief, intermission and then the next act was brought to the stage.
The second act of the night was Shwayze. I'm still not sure what I think of this one. He is definitley party music, and it seemed a lot of the crowd knew and was into his music. On this one particular song that talks about "Taquila and lime" they knew the chorus word for word. Usually I hit upmyspace so I'm educated on the artists who are opening, but this time I hadn't done it yet. Perhaps I should've. I felt very uneducated and out of place at times during that set that lasted somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes.
Then came the long intermission. I thought a long intermission meant Lupe was setting up a band. Well...
Not so much. Finally Lupe came out to a different intro than the one at IU, and instead of starting the show off with "Kick Push" he started it off with "The instrumental." The irony of this situation is this song came on my IPod on the way there and I thought, "Dang, I wish he'd bring this back!" Needless to say I lost my mind darn near when it kicked the show off. And I don't remember songs in exact order but the set included ""The Cool," "The Coolest", (with a very different beat and sped up), "Paris Tokyo," (side note right after I typed that it popped on ITunes), "Hip-hop Saved my Life," "Kick Push," "I Got Ya," "and High Definition." Other included "Streets On Fire and "Hello Goodbye" which had Lupe rapping through what my roommate accurately described as sounding like it was coming through "a drive-thru speaker." She had a point and while I get it because that effect is on "Hello Goodbye" on the album ti did make it difficult to understand Lupe's lyrics. At one point Lupe was freestyling over a Prodigy beat and after that Bishop G freestyled over a beat that I don't recall where it came from. And after those they played a clip of "Go Hard" which Lupe had cut off and said, "No, I'm not from Brooklyn," and then he went into a personal favorite of mine "Go Go Gadget Flow." The show capped off with Superstar and with "Daydreamin" was an Encore. And for a split second he started to play the beat for "Switch," which had me excited, but it was short lived as he cut it off and then said "Lazers" was coming soon, said it's about 10 tracks deep, and then he played a snip-it of "Shine Down," or I think that's the title. As a random side note when I heard it I immediately thought "Lollipop" and pray it either gets changed or cleared or I foresee some bad copyright issues in the future of that one. Oh and I can't forget "Little Weapon," which of course features Bishop G and had Lupe talking about how war is not necessary. I must agree!
As for the show... this is why I've struggled to put this review together. The show was great. Lupe's shows are always amazing. However, I don't know if he always stops the show during this part of the tour to "reintroduce myself," and plays his parts from Kanye West's song "Touch the Sky" as well as his part of the "Everyone Nose" remix by N.E.R.D., but he stopped almost as if wondering if the people there knew who he was. The vibe to me would indicate perhaps not. I honestly have to wonder if he would've done "Superstar" early in the evening if the place would've cleared out. It's sad but it is what it is. So the vibe to me in the place... something just wasn't right to me. And I must admit that with only a drummer and a DJ the show wasn't the same either. I missed the full band! I stick to my observation from my review of the IU concert that the live band makes the show that much better. So in summary... the show was good and I'm glad I went, but I must admit I enjoyed my experience at IU in August more.
And if anyone is wondering I did attempt to meet Lupe again, but it didn't work. So there's no need to put that behind a cut because there's nothing to say about it. All I'm going to say is security was no joke and was ready to get rid of us with a quickness!
That'll do it for the Lupe Fiasco review from the concert at Eastern Illinois University.
First of all I must say it... I've not seen such disorganization in my life, let alone such security! You litterally had to walk through a meddal detector at the door and then when you got in... good luck knowing where you were going until someone hollered something. And then when my roommate and I were seated we got moved. Thankfully the relocation was better viewing or that would've sucked! So 8:00 rolled around and of course the concert didn't start on time. Do they ever? My roommate and I sat discussing that when finally the lights were dimmed and the concert got started.
The first act up was a rapper who went by the name of I2K. If memory serves correctly he was the winner of a rap contest there at the university. It was difficult to tell how good he was thank to tracks that were pounding louder than his rapping. Nonetheless I think his set lasted about 30 minutes.
There was a brief, and I do mean brief, intermission and then the next act was brought to the stage.
The second act of the night was Shwayze. I'm still not sure what I think of this one. He is definitley party music, and it seemed a lot of the crowd knew and was into his music. On this one particular song that talks about "Taquila and lime" they knew the chorus word for word. Usually I hit upmyspace so I'm educated on the artists who are opening, but this time I hadn't done it yet. Perhaps I should've. I felt very uneducated and out of place at times during that set that lasted somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes.
Then came the long intermission. I thought a long intermission meant Lupe was setting up a band. Well...
Not so much. Finally Lupe came out to a different intro than the one at IU, and instead of starting the show off with "Kick Push" he started it off with "The instrumental." The irony of this situation is this song came on my IPod on the way there and I thought, "Dang, I wish he'd bring this back!" Needless to say I lost my mind darn near when it kicked the show off. And I don't remember songs in exact order but the set included ""The Cool," "The Coolest", (with a very different beat and sped up), "Paris Tokyo," (side note right after I typed that it popped on ITunes), "Hip-hop Saved my Life," "Kick Push," "I Got Ya," "and High Definition." Other included "Streets On Fire and "Hello Goodbye" which had Lupe rapping through what my roommate accurately described as sounding like it was coming through "a drive-thru speaker." She had a point and while I get it because that effect is on "Hello Goodbye" on the album ti did make it difficult to understand Lupe's lyrics. At one point Lupe was freestyling over a Prodigy beat and after that Bishop G freestyled over a beat that I don't recall where it came from. And after those they played a clip of "Go Hard" which Lupe had cut off and said, "No, I'm not from Brooklyn," and then he went into a personal favorite of mine "Go Go Gadget Flow." The show capped off with Superstar and with "Daydreamin" was an Encore. And for a split second he started to play the beat for "Switch," which had me excited, but it was short lived as he cut it off and then said "Lazers" was coming soon, said it's about 10 tracks deep, and then he played a snip-it of "Shine Down," or I think that's the title. As a random side note when I heard it I immediately thought "Lollipop" and pray it either gets changed or cleared or I foresee some bad copyright issues in the future of that one. Oh and I can't forget "Little Weapon," which of course features Bishop G and had Lupe talking about how war is not necessary. I must agree!
As for the show... this is why I've struggled to put this review together. The show was great. Lupe's shows are always amazing. However, I don't know if he always stops the show during this part of the tour to "reintroduce myself," and plays his parts from Kanye West's song "Touch the Sky" as well as his part of the "Everyone Nose" remix by N.E.R.D., but he stopped almost as if wondering if the people there knew who he was. The vibe to me would indicate perhaps not. I honestly have to wonder if he would've done "Superstar" early in the evening if the place would've cleared out. It's sad but it is what it is. So the vibe to me in the place... something just wasn't right to me. And I must admit that with only a drummer and a DJ the show wasn't the same either. I missed the full band! I stick to my observation from my review of the IU concert that the live band makes the show that much better. So in summary... the show was good and I'm glad I went, but I must admit I enjoyed my experience at IU in August more.
And if anyone is wondering I did attempt to meet Lupe again, but it didn't work. So there's no need to put that behind a cut because there's nothing to say about it. All I'm going to say is security was no joke and was ready to get rid of us with a quickness!
That'll do it for the Lupe Fiasco review from the concert at Eastern Illinois University.