The Great Hangover Tour concert review
A line wrapping around an entire block engulfs Royal Oak, Mich. as anticipation builds to experience a great hangover. But, this is a hangover that you want to have.
Asher Roth, Kid Cudi, B.o.B, and 88 Keys have teamed up this summer to perform across the country in the Great Hangover Tour, and The Urbanian was there July 18 in Royal Oak to take it all in.
When doors finally opened, the young crowd began to rapidly file in to get as close to the stage as possible. In the Royal Oak Music Theatre, there’s basically four different elevated levels for people to stand. The Urbanian set up shop on the second platform in the front row middle, which provided an excellent sight line over the mass of people right by the stage, while still being close.
First to take the stage was 88 Keys. You could instantly tell not many of the people attending the concert knew who he was. I tried starting an ‘88′ chant, but it was highly unsuccessful, which ended with some girl asking me why I was chanting ‘88.’
88 Keys came running out on stage with a backpack like he was dressed for an afternoon hike up a mountain. He went right into his first single off ‘The Death of Adam,’ ‘Stay Up (Viagra).’ Even though not many people knew his music the audience responded well to him. He managed to still get everyone saying ‘Stay up.’
Once 88 Keys was finished, I figured there would be a little downtime in between sets, but B.o.B came running right out, starting off with ‘Haterz Everywhere.’ It seemed more people knew B.o.B’s music, but there was still many left in the dark.
B.o.B had a couple back-up singers to go along with his set, which was a nice touch. B.o.B might be the most talented out of all four of the emcees there, and if more of the audience knew him, this would have really stood out more.
At one point he even busted out an acoustic guitar for a song. However, the highlight during his set was definitely his closing song, ‘I’ll Be in the Sky,’ which the majority of the audience seemed to know and sang along to. My guess is that people saw B.o.B’s name on the concert bill and googled him, yielding results with that song since it’s his most commercialized song. Hopefully people left this concert as new fans of B.o.B.
After he was done, there was quite some time in between him and Kid Cudi’s set. Finally the place got darker and lights from the stage starting flashing and a beat dropped, that is supposedly Kid Cudi’s ‘theme music’ which will appear on all his albums, soon followed by a shadowy figure appeared on stage. More lights flashed on revealing Cudi and the beat to ‘Down ‘n’ Out’ dropped and instantly the crowd got extra hyped and started singing along with Cudi. Once this set started, a certain strong aroma was thick amongst the air in the theater.
Kid Cudi performed for quite awhile, including what seemed like a 10-minute ‘Day ‘n’ Nite’ techno-fury of a dance party where everyone was jumping up and down, grinding, yelling, and singing. It was one of the craziest things I’ve ever been apart of. It was just a straight up good time.
Kid Cudi’s set stood out for the usage of lights during his songs. Behind him was a screen that flashed lights and images corresponding to what song he was performing. During ‘Man on the Moon,’ there were images of the moon and outer space along with an astronaut cartoon of Cudi. In ‘Sky Might Fall’ there were fireworks going off.
A song that really stood out was ‘Mr. Solo Dolo,’ where two extra huge beams of light were brought out and set on stage as all the other lights were turned off. These lights traded off flashing as Cudi sang this chillingly and eerie-sounding song. These lights helped make the experience of seeing this song live more haunting.
Cudi proved that he should be rocking arenas, rather than tiny theaters.
When Cudi was finished I felt like there was no way Asher Roth could come close to topping him. Well, he didn’t, but he held his own.
Like Cudi’s set standing out for the lighting, Roth’s stood out for the energy he brought to the stage. His set was so loud I couldn’t hear a thing after the show. That certain strong aroma reappeared when Roth came out, this time coming back with even more potency.
Roth went right into with ‘Lark On My Go-Kart.’ Everyone rapped right along with him, along with the jumping and dancing.
Roth brought out some All-American Rejects lead singer look-alike to help hype the crowd up even further. This guy did random things, such as sporting a lions costume during ‘Lion’s Roar,’ and tossing out water bottles to people in the crowd.
Like I said, Roth’s set was full of energy and wildly entertaining. During ‘She Don’t Wanna Man,’ he brought some ladies out on stage to strut their stuff. Roth brought so much energy out during this song that even the guys in the crowd were getting into this song.
Overall, this was the best concert I’ve been to this summer, (yes it even beats out Rock the Bells, which I was third row for), and possibly the best I’ve ever been to (and I’ve been to a lot of concerts). My only disappointment was that 88 Keys didn’t play ‘Morningwood,’ which I felt was the best song of 2008.
It should also be noted that what helped make this concert even more enjoyable was the fact that everyone was real friendly and chill during it (at least those by me). Usually at concerts like this with general admission you get people pushing and shoving, throwing some elbows and being quite rude. However, that was not the case here. Everyone really wanted to have good time, so everyone was friendly to each other, and dancing with each other. In fact, at one point when Cudi threw his shoes out into the crowd, I made a dive onto the floor for it, (coming nowhere close) and my Burn Rubber hat came flying off and I couldn’t find it. Thinking that there’s no way I would get it back and someone would certainly snatch it right up for themselves, a few guys got their cellphones out to shine light for me to find it, and sure enough I got it right back.
If The Great Hangover Tour comes rolling through close to you, in fact, even if it’s hours away, it’s worth the drive to go to. Get out there and enjoy this concert.
Enjoy some video I managed to get while security wasn’t looking.
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4 Responses to “The Great Hangover Tour concert review”
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88 keys didn’t play morning wood?! That’s a disappointment within itself. Surprised more people recognized B.o.B. then 88 though, it’s not like he didn’t drop a video with Kanye a couple of months ago… Then again, people probably thought it was 88 who was featured on Kanye’s song.
Great write up, I’m pissed we didn’t get to meet up with you guys at the show, thought Royal took down your information so that we could get that beer. Where were you guys at in the crowd? We managed to get up in the front leftish area right in front of a security guard that needed to tell us all about his life. Great show though, would see them again no doubt
http://code2ave.com/2009/07/23/the-hip-hop-hangover/
- Drama
[...] stated before that between the stage presence and light show, Kid Cudi was one of the best performers [...]
What kind of shoes did he throw?