Lupe Fiasco @ The Palace Theatre - Concert Report

Fresh To Def attended Lupe's BDO side show @ The Palace Theatre in
Melbourne on January 27th 2009 and wrote the following report:

We all know Lupe is muslim, but we all also know that the reason he has said the thing he hates most right now is the Israeli Army is because of the humanitarian in him, as opposed strictly because of his faith.

Throughout the entire month here in Melbourne, we've had rallies going on in the city calling for an end to the callous war crimes being committed by the Israeli army and black t-shirts have been distributed at these events reading FREE GAZA in bold white font.

Today Lupe Fiasco reached for one of those shirts in the crowd being waved at him by one of the muslim sisters in attendance and set it aside near the drum player from 1500 or nothing. He went backstage for a moment before re-emerging topless.

He approached the girl and gave her his top as a gesture of gratitude before retrieving the Free Gaza t-shirt which he then chucked on to the thunderous approval of the entire crowd, from the front row, back of the dancefloor all the way up to the rafters, the roar reverberated through the theatre to the point where, if you were to measure, you'd record deafening decibels!

Lupe eventually settled the crowd down, before delivering a brief speech about peace being a right of every country, no matter how big or small. The speech was followed by a conveniently appropriate performance of American Terrorist.

He then prayed that every child stuck between the crossfires of the escalating war between Palestine and Israel could daydream, through these hardtimes of unrest for a better day, which he capped off with a mind-boggling performance of none other than his hit single ... DayDreamin' !!!

He had the crowd wrapped around his finger with this one. Now, Lupe was singing the praises of The Prodigy in a BLOG ENTRY recently, saying, touring with them and witnessing their sets on the national Big Day Out tour has him convinced they're the best performers he's EVER seen. I saw The Prodigy last night at the Melbourne leg of the big day out, and I can definitely vouch for Lupe when he says they're so surreal live; Insane was the way he put it I think.

But with that said, Lupe, to me anyways, has just as much spark. His energy is tremendous, his charisma is so respectable, such a likeable guy, who is a wiz at interacting with the crowd.

He did so well tonight. So well in fact, that he seriously has me contemplating travelling to his Adelaide show next up and then travelling all the way to the west coast to catch his last Australian gig on the tour, in Perth. He's simply that gifted! Ma'shallah!


Here's an additional video of Lupe performing Gold Watch:

Click here to see some more videos.