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A$AP Rocky headlined a concert this past Friday at the House of Blues in Boston. I got all overexcited and posted a preview for it a few weeks ago. And by preview I mean the Top 10 A$AP Rocky Songs. [I promise that is the end of the shameless self-promotion. The shameless A$AP promotion is just getting started though.]
I’ll be honest; I went into the concert with a little hesitation. Certain members of the Gavel told me not to get my hopes up. They’d seen A$AP Rocky in concert and said, I quote, “he wasn’t that good.”
THEY LIED. It was siiiiiick, with at least six i’s. I felt like this for three solid hours. A$AP Rocky’s concert changed my life. Here are just five facts I learned at the show that have made me a better person:
1. Danny Brown’s “Blunt After Blunt” is an infectious disease.
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I completely forgot that Danny Brown was going to be at this concert until I walked in the door of the HoB and he was on the stage. If you don’t know who Danny Brown is, he’s a rapper with a weird voice, a weirder haircut and a gap tooth. I didn’t really know that many of his songs, but when he got to the chorus of this one, his grand finale, I had one of those “remember this moment for the rest of your life” moments. I’ve been singing the chorus under my breath non-stop for the past 36 hours. Five of them were spent with my dad at the football game. So awkward. Also, apparently A$AP Rocky directed the video. Illuminati-type stuff.
2. Schoolboy Q’s swag is out of control.
Schoolboy Q gave the middle performance. Schoolboy Q collaborates frequently with Kendrick Lamar and goes all types of HAM on the latter’s “Michael Jordan” and “The Spiteful Chant.” He also makes an equally HAM guest appearance on A$AP Rocky’s “Brand New Guy,” and his own hit, “Hands On The Wheel,” features a guest spot from Rocky.
The most impressive thing about Q, however, is just how little he cares about anything. He walked out onstage wearing a fisherman’s hat, smoking a fat blunt. Just in case anyone was confused, he immediately announced that the blunt was filled with weed. Then he spent the next half an hour telling us to “turn up” and that it was okay to say the N-word because it’s 2012 and there’s no more racism. For the record: I think he might have been high.
3. This tank top exists.
Photo by Robert Rossi/Gavel Media
It may or may not be in my closet now.
4. The A$AP Mob cannot be contained.
Rocky came out onto the stage wearing a turban on his head and a black-and-white American flag around his body like a cape. It had to do with not wanting to be a part of the system or something. Nobody was really paying attention because, well, we were all so distracted by how damn pretty he was.
After the second song (“Purple Swag”) he was joined onstage by all 600 members of the A$AP Mob. However, the House of Blues was totally unprepared and only about three of them got to use microphones. The other guys all just kind of jumped around shouting the words to Rocky’s verses at the top of their lungs hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone in the audience would hear them and justify their presence on the stage.
Adding insult to injury, at one point in the set, Rocky decided that he needed to open a new bottle of water (having just sprayed his last one into the crowd). He handed the microphone to some dude in the front row who started screaming incoherently about how “WE LOVE YOU MAN, WE LOVE YOU!!!” Rocky was clearly amused and started passing the microphone around to various people in the crowd, including one girl who asked us to follow her on Twitter but forgot to disclose her Twitter handle. Eventually, one person who shouldn’t have gotten hold of the microphone did and told Rocky that he needed to cut it out with the dirty language, prompting Rocky to yell “Give me my fuckin’ microphone back” and spoiling the fun for everyone. Then the A$AP Mob members who never got to touch the microphone started crying (not really, but probably on the inside).
5. A$AP Rocky performing “Peso” is the greatest thing in the world.
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This footage is not from the concert on Friday. This footage captures about 2 percent of the sheer cathartic magnificence of A$AP Rocky’s performance of “Peso” at the end of his set on Friday. I was so happy that I texted all the people I had ever wronged up to that point in my life and apologized. Then they all texted me back and told me they forgave me. Okay, I did not literally do that, but I felt that awesome. Long live A$AP.
Follow Robert Rossi on Twitter @RVRossi. He would appreciate it if you asked DAT PMF (@asvpxrocky) to do the same.
Rob hails from Lexington, Massachusetts and is a member of the Carroll School of Management Class of 2013, concentrating in Finance and Marketing. He joined the Gavel Media editorial board as a freshman and was Culture Editor during his sophomore year before assuming the role of Managing Editor in January 2012. He loves hip-hop, Dos Equis commercials, and talking to people about Tom Brady. Follow him on Twitter @RVRossi.
