By KEVIN JACOB
Staff Writer
Welcome all to another amazing edition of Kickin’ It With KJ. I’ve been absent over the past week or two, but fear not because I’m back with a new edition. Now I was going to originally do a music review edition like usual but: 1) I wasn’t completely sure what to write about lately and 2) STILL some things that were supposed to come out didn’t (I’m looking at you Travis $cott. You’re a huge fluke with Owl Pharaoh). Anyway this past weekend I saw A$AP Rocky in concert at the Upstate Concert Hall (formerly known as Northern Lights) up in Clifton Park. The show was wild. But before I got there I went through quite a bit.
You see, the A$AP concert fell on the Saturday when we came back from break. I was planning on going with a friend of mine and the plan was for him to get his ticket at the concert because he thought someone would be selling them. Let me remind you the event has been sold out. Being the smart guy that I am, I got my actual ticket as soon as I heard about it. Whether I’d be able to go (I wouldn’t leave a bro hanging) or not was to be determined by fate.
So we venture off to Northern Lights at around 7-ish, which is when the doors are supposed to open. We get there and decide to check StubHub, but we need to actually print the tickets, so we try a local Staples. We got screwed over because the last StubHub tickets were gone by the time we got there, and so we tried another site “Stub.com.”Well, my advice to you all is: don’t use this site. It scammed my friend and left him with no ticket for the time being.
We go back to the concert and try to explain to an event person our ordeal and she officially tells my friend he was scammed. Oh joy. As we head back to his truck to re-evaluate our plan it’s around 8:30-9:00 when the first opener Bodega Bamz came on. I found this odd because there were still a ton of people outside. But one of the entrances was open so I saw Bamz do a song or two. He seemed to have done a good job but the crowd didn’t seem to into him.
On the way back we saw a group of kids who weren’t in the greatest of conditions. They seemed pretty ticked and I noticed them go up to the car next to us. Sure enough, they were trying to sell tickets. The main guy said the one girl’s was somehow fake but that he had a couple real ones with him that weren’t scanned. My friend bought one for the retail price. Now we are at the door. The guy looks at my friends ticket, gives him the go ahead, and as soon as I get marked up, another gentleman brings him out and says his ticket had already been scanned. So close and the cold just gets colder. So as soon as we get rejected, we see two intoxicated UAlbany students and approach them about buying their tickets.
During the night we ended up befriending a security guy who wanted to see us get in. He hated these other kids, so I knew they wouldn’t get in. My friend approaches the one and he said if he gets tossed out of line again, he would sell my friend his ticket at a great price. Before we gave him the money though, he would have to come with us to get it scanned so we didn’t get completely screwed again. He got kicked out. My dude gets his ticket. We get to the line. It scans. Praise the Lord.
Still, when we went through the final phases, the girl said my friend’s ticket was already scanned, but our security guard compadre told her that an official at the other end scanned it and we were good. We get in just at about quarter to ten, and A$AP still hasn’t started yet. We settle into as good of a spot as we could get, chilled out to the Young Jeezy Inspiration album being played to keep the crowd interested (great decision, by the way), and we waited a few minutes before the man himself came out.
A$AP Rocky came out and killed the show right from the start. He played better-known singles such as “Goldie” and “F***in Problems,” a couple of mixtape cuts such as “Trilla” and “Wassup,” he even played some great cuts from his album such as “Jodye” and “Wild for the Night”. The best track that I thought done live was “Angels.” Not only was the crowd hyped up to the max, but that bass was hitting so hard, nobody could stay still and Rocky, at that point, had full control of the crowd.
Along with Rocky, A$AP Twelvy, and A$AP Ferg, who was supposed to be one of the openers, helped Rocky with his set and did a couple of their own personal joints from the A$AP Mob mixtape. Twelvy did “YNRE” which got a better reception than I thought it would and the one song I wanted to see done by A$AP Ferg was “Work.” They were good hypemen the entire show, and I thought each one served well to the overall tone of the concert.
Although it was one of the more lively concerts I’ve been to, I had one minor problem. For all of the bull***t that we went through, A$AP was only on for barely an hour. Although I may sound like I’m being selfish here, I wish the mob would’ve gone on a little bit longer.
In the end the concert was great, and it was not only crazy, but weird how everything ended up turning out. The energy was great, the performance was good, and everyone seemed to go home happy.
That’s all for this week’s edition. Hopefully next week I get to some more music projects. But until then, peace.
