Made
In
America
philadelphIa
a concert review by
Jarrett Lampley
This year I was lucky enough to take a trip to Philadelphia over Labor Day weekend to the Made In America music festival, curated by the one and only Jay Z. With up and coming powerhouses from The Weeknd to Vic Mensa headlining, as well as classic acts such as De La Soul, Fabulous and none other than Queen Bey, I was quite excited to spend my final days before returning to school enjoying such performances in the amazing city of Philadelphia. It was my first time both in Philadelphia and at Made In America, and I came out of the weekend with nothing but a positive experience.
My entire Saturday, as you can expect from a Beyoncé stan like myself, was spent waiting at the stage she would perform at 10:30pm. I arrived at 1:00pm, armed with some snacks I snuck in as well as the liter of water that we were allowed to bring in. I was lucky enough to have friends from Chicago in town and saved me a spot in the crowd, which was necessary given that a sizable group of fans had already arrived at the stage even at such an early hour in the morning.
Everybody who had arrived at such an early time (given that the festival grounds opened at noon) were clearly waiting for Beyoncé since she was performing at the largest stage of the festival. Though this was true, many large acts were scheduled throughout the day, given that she was performing at the biggest stage of the festival. The lineup at her stage featured The Struts, Vic Mensa, De La Soul, Meek Mill and Modest Mouse and Beyoncé. I hadn’t seen Vic since he blew up over the past couple of months, had never seen De La Soul and saw Meek when he opened for Nicki on the Pinkprint Tour back in August.
I had high hopes for Vic seeing that I am a fan of his recent music, and was also quite excited to see De La Soul perform some of my favorites including “Me, Myself & I” as well as “The Grind Date.” I knew that it would be a long day waiting in the summer heat, but I also knew that it would be worth it in the end.
After an interesting performance by The Struts, an English rock band, Vic hit the stage at 3:15 and brought the energy. Though we were all in Philly, he still gave Chicago the shout-out that we deserved and made my friends and I proud. He opened with the banger “Feel That”, bass vibrating through the crowd and waking people up for the long day of waiting that was ahead of us. He followed up with one of my favorites, “Wimme Nah.” After a few more of his hits such as “Orange Soda” and “No Chill,” Vic basically gave me a heart attack when he covered Chance The Rapper’s “Cocoa Butter Kisses,” prompting my friends and I to think that he was about to bring out Chance (which sadly didn’t happen). Vic closed out his hour long set with “U Mad,” featuring Kanye West, causing the crowd to hype it up more than they had throughout the rest of the show. Overall, Vic put together a really great set in my opinion. The set list was perfect for diehard fans of his as well as people who didn’t know him, and was quite entertaining. Perhaps my favorite moment of the show was when he looked out to the crowd and asked, “Do y’all need water?” to which everybody responded with an emphatic “YES!” Though we had only been out for about 2 hours, that sun wasn’t cute, and many people started to feel the effects of dehydration. Instead of giving us the water to drink, Vic threw it, prompting the crowd to start yelling at him for wasting the precious water and then return to enjoying the rest of his set, though we were all a little salty.
Following Vic came De La Soul, an old school rap trio from Long Island. Though I wasn’t extremely familiar with their music, they were responsible for the creation of one of my favorite old school bops “Me, Myself and I.” They came out on stage with a good energy, but one that clearly wasn’t being reciprocated by the crowd. The dehydration got worse, and people quite literally sat down during their performance. When they noticed it they clearly weren’t having it, prompting them to say things such as “I see a lot of Britney Spears’ in the crowd” and flame the left side of the crowd for their inability to appreciate the music. It was hilarious.
Their performance was sort of rough for the crowd however because it was getting to the 4 hour mark of waiting. The sun was beaming directly down on us, we were packed into small spaces and we weren’t allowed to bring much water in the venue, all contributing to the trying experience. Because we were at the barriers we had access to the security guards, whom we’d constantly ask for water. They’d reply “Oh it’s coming,” proceed to wait an hour, throw 2 to 3 500mL water bottles in a crowd of thousands and thousands of people and expect for that to be enough. Right after De La Soul, people started dropping like flies. At least 2 people passed out next to me within 30 minutes and had to be dragged out of the pit, insisting that they were okay and that they could wait for Beyoncé. A girl next to me referred to the experience as The Hunger Games, which I honestly would say wasn’t too far off.
After De La Soul came Meek, which I would describe as crazy.