A LupEND Blog Review of the Lupe Fiasco Concert @ Elon University

So… the night started out with a LONG wait. Doors were to open at 7:00, but they didn’t until 8:20. Those of us who had been waiting in line early were frustrated. Finally the doors open and everyone rushed through security and into the gymnasium. Girltalk, the opening act, came out around 8:50. SMH. Shake my DAMN head. I am laughing as I write this, because I have never been to a rave before....

If you don’t know, Girltalk is a talented DJ whose shows are just wild. I have never been so GROPED... sweated on… thrown against the gate… and disgusted at a show... EVER. All for you Lu, lol. But yeah, I was front row and the crowd was wild. Girltalk had some hypemen in Freddy Krueger & ski masks blowing toilet paper into the crowd (leafblowers with paint rollers in them and toilet paper attached). Of course ghetto toilet paper blowers can only blow but so far, so Freddy Krueger had a blast blowing me in the face for an hour.

Giant balloons filled with confetti were floating through the crowd and popping all over the place as people moshed. People were body surfing- LOL you should have seen their faces when they realized security was at the front of the crowd catch them and escort them out. Uhhh, the crowd kept rushing and forcing the front row against the gate... it was very painful, my dressed ripped, I’m serious, crowd was ridiculous. They started chanting “LUPE LUPE LUPE” during Girltalk’s set. You can only be but so entertained watching a DJ mix on stage.

Finally, after being just EXTRA and ripping his shirt off, Girltalk jumps off stage in a sweaty frenzy and jumps on the gate on top of my friend Mary and I. His sweat rained down on us and we wiped it off with the toilet paper being shot at our faces. He then kicked off of my friend’s forehead (not even kidding) and body surfed the crowd. I love his music; Girltalk is all over my I-Pod… but trust, I will NEVER attend one of his shows ever again in my life. Ever.

At this point, people in the front rows were asking security to take them out of the crowd. About 15 people gave up their front row seat (stand?) for the balcony. The crowd kept rushing and crushing us against the gate. We decided to stay anyway and asked some of the larger guys next to us to protect us, lol, shout out to the Tarheels (who would have thought I would ever say that)

DJ Simon and Bam took the stage, and finally, the crowd burst into cheers for Lupe Fiasco. He started the show off with The Instrumental. He was jumping all over the place, so the first thing I noticed was the patent leather Converse sneakers. I need some of those, *hint

The show was full of energy. I can’t remember the order of the set but I do remember Go Go Gadget Flow, The Coolest, The Cool, Paris Tokyo, Touch the Sky, Daydream, Kick Push, Superstar, Streets on Fire, Hi- Definition, Hello Goodbye, and Little Weapon.

Lupe was all over the stage- jumping on speakers and dapping security guards. Bishop, we missed you! Meanwhile, I was putting on my own show… rapping all of the words along with him (oops ;] ). The show was refreshing, especially after my Calculus final that day. I didn’t realize how much I missed going to his shows. He kept playing to the audience, and the transitions were really dope.

He put on their Elon jersey in the middle of the show and they went crazy. He preached to the crowd “War is not the answer. War is never the answer. Not tomorrow, not yesterday, not today, and not… toooooooooniggggggggggghtttttttttttttttttttttttt. I said… not toooooooooooniggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt” and then went straight into Streets on Fire. Dope.

I also really liked when he had his fun behind Simon’s DJ booth.He asks Simon to play something he could dance to, and proceeds to lead the crowd into “Day N Nite”, freestyled a few lines over “Ain’t I”, and danced to Hey Champ. The funny part is when he says he wants to play some Japanese Cartoon. One of the students next to me goes “YOU’RE THE LEAD SINGER!!!” and Lupe says, “No I’m not.” He says, “YES YOU ARE!” and Lupe jokingly goes, “NOOO I’m not! You bastard!” LOL, I died. The fan then passes Lu his Chicago hat to sign.

NOTE TO LUPEND READERS: Lu is a little superstitious and will not sign in red ink. He wanted to sign it, but the hat sat on stage because he didn’t have a different pen to sign with. The show finally ends and the crowd shouts “ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!” Lupe comes back out and plays the Shining Down sample. Shows over.

The crowd left very quickly. Good look to Simon and Bam for letting me backstage. We all laughed for a bit until Lupe came out. Bam thought the Girltalk show was hilarious. The whole time he was on the side of the stage laughing at me, LOL. During the show, he saw me shaking my head at the toiletpaper getting shot at me and pointed at the 24 pack of rolls I had to look forward to, smirking. Too funny.

Lupe came out from the dressing room (women’s locker room? lol) and I thanked him for the show. When I told him I was with LupEND Blog he was very appreciative and kind. Lol @ him telling me that he “recognized me from the avatar.” He agreed to do a shoutout with no hesitation. The funny thing is, we shot that clip like six times. Lu, you are such a good sport, lol. I give him his credit. He enunciated that “dash” every time. Mary kept trying to jump into the video and he was like “nooooo” or it wouldn’t record or something. I need to make a bloopers real. But that was very nice of you, Lu.

So that was my night. It was such a great show. I left with my dress torn and my hair sweated out (sadly, by other people’s sweat- not mine- sooooo gross)…but would I do it again? Hell, yeah! Lupe is such a great performer and definitely made the night worth it. Feel free to check my video clips from the concert on my YouTube channel.

You can see some of my pics in the entry below.

Pics in this entry via mattbellphoto