Lupe Live In Seattle
Just got back from seeing Lupe Fiasco at Showbox here in Seattle. Here’s how it went down:
The night began arriving to the Showbox an hour before doors, at 7 PM. At the time I thought my spot in line, which was around the corner, was a bad one, but over the course of the next hour the line stretched almost a block to 2nd Avenue. Shortly thereafter, a scalper (who accused me of being a scalper 0_o) approached me to buy my extra ticket. After a couple minutes of bargaining, I sold it to him for $40 (original cost: $20), so I flipped a nice $20 profit. Then after seemed 4 hours, the doors open at 8:15. The Showbox is a small venue, with a general admission standing area in front of the stage, and a 21 and over bar in back. Finally after another long wait, the opening act, Optimas came on at around 9:30. They are a band that appears like a “normal” rock band at first, until the Emcee and his hypeman (who looked like Justin Guarini) came on stage. The emcee was a talented rapper, but his NSYNC moves he did took away from his performance (he must have forgotten who he was performing for: rap fans).
And finally at around 10:30, Lupe came on, proceeded by his band (which includes Beatdown on drums, who Fort Minor fans will remember was Mike’s drummer on the Fort Minor tours). Lupe narrated the show like he was showing us around Chicago, starting with Food & Liquor, and ending with The Cool. The set kicked off with an instrumental intro from his band, and then they kicked into “Real.” Then they kicked into a shortened version of “Touch The Sky”. After “Touch The Sky” was “The Instrumental.” Shortly after starting, Lupe stopped the band, and told us that when they played this song in Dublin, Ohio, that the crowded jumped and down during the song (demonstration included). So he started up the song again, and this time the crowd went nuts. We were standing so close together that I almost fell. Through the rest of the first half of the set, he went through all his hits from Food & Liquor, including “Kick, Push”, “I Gotcha”, “The Cool”, “Hurt Me Soul”, and “He Say She Say.” “Daydreamin” (which got probably the biggest reaction all night) and American Terrorist were in the second half of the set. He also did “Happy Industries” from The Rhyming Ape mixtape.
After a short intermission, where Gemini performed a couple songs off his mixtapes, Lupe and his band came out on stage, and kicked into material off his new album, The Cool, which included an acapella version of “The Coolest”, and “Paris, Tokyo”, “Dumb it Down”, an extended version of “Little Weapon” (where he intoduced his band (the guitar played did an awesome solo with his teeth)) and ended the set with Superstar. I was unable to stay long afterwards, as I had to catch the bus, but it was still blast. Lupe puts on an awesome show, with tons of energy. If he is coming to your city, try to catch the show, because you won’t regret it. Even if it means being on your feet for 6 hours straight haha.
-J
Filed under Music