LIVE MUSIC SPOTLIGHT ::: CHILDISH GAMBINO AT THE MASQUERADE MUSIC PARK

For the writers of this blog, this was a show that we could not have been more excited for. Donald Glover is one of the most talented people in entertainment today. From writing for 30 Rock at age 25 to starring on Community to having a great stand-up comedy following, Glover was already more accolmplished than most people his age, but that wasn't enough. His first love was music and he took that step in the form of Childish Gambino. From seeing him at Bonnaroo in 2012 fresh off the release of his first real album Camp, we really wanted to see if his live show had evolved as much as his songwriting and production had. That question was answered very quickly at this show. Because the Internet showed just how much he had evolved as a rapper from mostly rapping about girls and how everybody doubted him to asking meaningful questions about life, existence, and how the hype surrounding the internet has turned people into followers and sheep at times. He still leaves some time to rap about girls, but on a much more sophisticated level that shows how much he has matured as an artist.

The first thing that we noticed about this show was the production value. The tour is called the "Deep Web Tour" and attendees can download the Deep Web app that only works onsite and turns the show into an interactive experience. As you can see in the picture to the right, there was one part of the show that allowed app users to vote on "how they were feeling." Another really cool aspect of this show was how it tied in to the concept of the album. Because the Internet is a concept album that Glover wrote an accompanying screenplay for. In the screenplay, Childish Gambino is "The Boy", a young adult living in a mansion with his friends, dealing drugs, and trolling people on the internet. At the show, the stage had a large screen where an image of the inside of a mansion was projected onto. There were also people in the background sitting on couches and just acting like they were hanging out. At one point (during the song The Party), "The Boy" gets fed up with everything and kicks everyone out of his house. At the end of the Because the Internet portion of the show, Gambino performed the song Earth: The Oldest Computer (The Last Night). While the song is going on, the "mansion" in the background starts to crumble and fall to the ground. This is one (of MANY) of the instances where the production value was amazing. 

(Crawl)

(WORLDSTAR)

(Shadows)

 

(The Party)

Follow us after the jump for more video and insight

Big Boi at the Georgia Theatre April 18th 2013

On April 18th, the Georgia Theatre almost got burned down again. No, not by some electrical malfunction. This time, it was the awesome performance put on by Big Boi (aka Daddy Fat Saxxx aka One Half of THE Outkast) that almost lit up the place. Big Boi was born in West Savannah, Georiga, but the ATL is his home. This marked the second time that the B-I-G B-O-I has played the Theatre; the first was in the fall of 2011 about a month after they reopened the place. This time around, he was touring to promote his new record Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors.  Having gone to both shows, I've got to say that this one was better.

For starters, Killer Mike (pictured right) opened for him. For those of you that don't know, Killer Mike has been big in the Atlanta rap scene for years and his opening set was awesome. He gave a nod to fellow Atlanta rapper Bone Crusher by playing the song "Never Scared" and rapping his own verse from the song. Killer Mike was discovered by OutKast, and has been featured on a bunch of their songs. He talked about how appreciative he is of the group and how thankful he is for Big Boi bringing him along on this tour. Now Killer was great, but Big Boi just about brought the house down.

Big Boi took the stage around 11:15 or so despite the listed start time of his set being 10:30. This is commonplace for, well, most live shows. He had a live band backing him (a drummer, a guitarist, and a DJ) and also a female singer that covered the parts on the new tracks off of Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors that were sung by Sarah Barthel of Phantogram. Speaking of those tracks, he opened with one of them called Objectum Sexuality, a song about "romantic desire for inanimate objects"...

Objectum Sexuality

Now, a lot of the time when an artist releases a new album, people worry that they will play too much of it at a show and forget the classics... not the case with Big Boi. He did a great job of mixing in the old and the new, including a very cool montage of older songs that featured ATLiens, B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad), and So Fresh, So Clean. He also busted out Ms. Jackson, Elevators, and these tracks off his 2nd most recent album...

Shutterbug

  

General Patton

Now, I did mention that it was a mix of old and new, and another one of the new tracks sounded awesome live...

CPU 

Another really cool moment from this show was a special guest appearance by Decatur, GA (my hometown) born rapper B.o.B. He did his song Nothin' On You and they also did some tracks that featured both of them including the track that this tour takes it's name from Shoes for Running. 

Now, I mentioned Killer Mike earlier. Yes he did open for Big Boi, but his night was not done. He came back out and helped Big Boi out with another old OutKast track...

The Whole World

The energy throughout the building was phenominal for this show, and it looked like the place was about to bust out into a full on mosh pit when Kryptonite was played (every time the lyric "If you want me you can find me in the... A" was dropped, people timed their jumps to hit the ground on the "A"... it was pretty intense). The show ended with one of the new tracks, and of course it was another Atlanta anthem... (I apologize for the black spot in the middle of this next video, but there's a good story. Purple Ribbon rapper C-Bone threw his shirt into the crowd and I caught it while filming. He then asked for it back, so I threw it back. It only takes away from the video for a few seconds)...

In The A

I had an absolute blast at this show. So much so that I am seriously thinking about going to his Atlanta show in June (who am I kidding, I'll be there). I can only imagine the type of cameos he'll have at that one, and a rendition of In The A with T.I. or Ludacris or both would be incredible. We can only hope...