Rae Sremmurd: S
In the past six months, I have been to some of the biggest tours that music had to offer. Literally, within 2 months, I saw Drake on the Summer Sixteen Tour, Kanye on the Saint Pablo Tour, and Beyoncé on the Formation World Tour. I’ m forever grateful for those experiences, but there is something special about shorter tours from smaller artists. Even though the artists may not be able to pack Phillips Arena or gross $ 50 million off of one fall stretch, they still produce some of the most special tour experiences that I have ever witnessed.
October 1, 2016 marked my return to The Tabernacle in Atlanta since November 2015 when I got the chance to see Wale, 2 Chainz, Waka Flocka, Lucci, and Kap G thanks to my student fees at Georgia Perimeter College. I had gone nearly a full year without attending a tour that wasn’ t“ stadium status.” As a result, there were things that I had simply forgotten about. I had forgotten about waiting in line for hours, just so you could get a good view of the stage. As painful as it got sometimes, I always met the coolest people waiting in those lines and waiting for the show to start sandwiched between people that you don’ t even know. Sometimes you’ d get lucky and be totally surrounded by baddies that, but most of the time you’ d find yourself awkwardly uncomfortable and unhappy while being ass-to-pelvis with some weird dude who doesn’ t seem to know any of the songs playing in the meantime. All of that was, and it really always was, worth it when the artist that you came to see finally came out and went ham.
Like I said before, my last string of concerts had spoiled me, but now I was about to be thrust into the real world and the most authentic music scene as possible because that night I was going to see Rae Sremmurd for the Sremmlife 2 Tour, along with supporting act Lil Yachty.
I met my boy Corey at The Tabernacle, and I was extremely lucky that he had done his due diligence and got there a while before doors opened. As I walked down Luckie Street about 25 minutes before doors, he let me chill with him towards the front of the line. The scene was vibrant with a street musician, college students from Atlanta, an assortment of white girls who may have already had something to drink, and the kids whose parents were cool enough to let them go to a concert on a school night. Dope shit people; this is legit who I look forward to seeing everywhere I go.
Little did I know though, the people in attendance were going to be my least favorite part of the night. As we huddled up downstairs, I was in a beautiful position. There were no guys destroying me from the back and there wasn’ t anyone tall in front of me, and I’ m not even going to flex, I was having a bunch of fun. I withstood the DJ set, Bobo Swae( who had a lit set for an artist that still isn’ t that well known), and Eearz( who kicked me with what felt like Timbs when he jumped into the crowd). The artists to grace the stage were doing their job really well, entertaining everyone regardless of how well the audience knew their music. It was the people surrounding me that were killing my vibe. Lil Boat was coming up next, so all of the people here to see him were front and center. With this being my first Yachty concert, I had never been around his fan base like that. Those people at that concert were annoying as shit. I could understand their thirst for Yachty, but they were also acting like they had never been to a concert like this before.
“ OH MY FUCKING GOD BACK UP!”“ BRUH IF I GET PUSHED ONE MORE TIME, I SWEAR
TO GOD!”“ OH MY GOSH, IS THAT HIS DICK?” All of those claims really do sound legit, but take them into context. We are at the tabernacle- keep in mind it’ s sold out- and it always gets like this. All of those uncomfortable things are just a part of the experience, and it’ s something that you’ ve just got to let go and forget about to enjoy the show. These people must not have not known that because they complained the entire show until“ LIL BOAT!” blasted from the speakers. I think it was safe to say that it was the first concert for a lot of the people there, and no one really told them what it was going to be like. But all pf their frowns