By EDWIN ESCOBAR
Contributing Writer
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 1, 2011
The J Cole concert at Washington Ave Armory was a success bringing in a packed house at the Armory in Albany, NY on Friday October 21, 2011. The anticipation of J Cole visiting the capital region brought a lot of hype and revenue for the area. J Cole had many fans coming from all over the country. Kasha Wingate managed to get hold of the tickets from Detroit.
“There was no way I was missing this. It was on a Friday and I had no classes. It was a perfect opportunity,” said Wingate.
J Cole, born in Germany, and raised in North Carolina started building towards his future in music after being given a beat machine by his mother as a gift. It all started from there. Jay-Z’s Roc Nation signed J Cole in 2008. He was even a guest artist on the opening of The Blueprint 3.
J Cole now has the number-one selling album in the country for the past two weeks. Fans of J Cole started forming a line as early as 1pm to be assured a front row seat. The first opening act was performed by Saint Rose’s own Stephen Struss and the band Mirk. The band put on a great show just in time to warm up the anxious crowd with the songs “Stand Under” (unreleased), “Beautiful Music”, and “Renee”, the latter two both featured Mr. Cheeks.
Struss described the event as, “Well organized and fairly smooth.” He then went on to say, “The J Cole show was pretty successful. Cole himself is a very down to earth guy, very humble and very talented.”
J Cole came out with an opening note of his life story and how he started from nothing and is now a rapper, “This is a dream come true. You can do anything that you want, stick to it.”
He made sure to please his crowd with hit singles “In the Morning” and “Work Out” that had the crowd ecstatic. J Cole even had the crowd involved in his music. He made sure his performance was interactive with his fans asking the fans to finish the verses as he cut the music off. During his performance of “Lights Please” J Cole had most of the lights off, but they were again illuminated when the crowd was asked to, “Put your lights up, lighters, phones, whatever you got.”
J Cole put on an amazing show, and it’s guaranteed that many will ask for his return to “I came from Orange County to see him perform and it was amazing. I would love to attend future events at the Washington Armory.”
Washington Avenue Armory has been pumping this year and will continue to do so throughout the coming year. Foam Fest happened this past Friday; DeadMau5 will be performing on Nov. 3, and Rick Ross and Maybach Group will perform on Nov. 4. Albany has been attracting many artists and groups to our area. Albany is now exclusively a part of “Cole World”.
