Concert Review: Post Malone - Auckland - 11th May 2019
Post Malone | Photo Megan Moss
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL POST MALONE GALLERY BY MEGAN MOSS
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL JADEN SMITH PHOTO GALLERY BY MEGAN MOSS
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL TYLA YAWEH PHOTO GALLERY BY MEGAN MOSS
By Lisa Diedricks
Artist: Post Malone
Date / Venue: Saturday May 11th, 2019 - Spark Arena, Auckland
Twisted ankles, pass outs, and an annual shoey. Think you know what I’m on about? No it’s not your brother’s 21st, or your best pal’s stag do, believe it or not, this is your typical Post Malone concert.
Saturday night, Auckland kicked off the first of the 2 shows that the New York rapper, known as Austin Richard Post, but to many, his stage name, Post Malone, had to offer.
Post is one of the hottest musicians right now. And I say musician, not just rapper, cause holy damn that man can sing, play the guitar and dance! Straight into it, the back of some incredibly popular tracks from his Beerbongs And Bentleys album in 2018 has made waves already in the industry. Rockstar, Psycho and Better Now are all number one hits that stemmed from the album, and from there he gained millions and millions of dedicated fans.
Before we dive right into what seemed to be one of hottest shows of 2019 thus far, we gotta step back and pay tribute to the whole show and what his team did to really enforce the hype. Let me introduce you to TYLA YAWEH, a Florida rapper that began to gain a following on the music platform, SoundCloud, which put him into the basket and stigma of just another SoundCloud rapper. Now, I have my doubt about this sort of artist, as many of them have no depth or constitution for the rap game in general. I have about a 30 second window where you either wow me or I move on. TYLA, surprisingly you wowed me. I didn’t realise the kid had bangers and I couldn’t stop smiling when he was on stage. From his dance moves to his quirky personality he really hit his opening performance out of the park, and started the supporting acts off on the right path.
The second performing act (yes Posty blessed us with more just one for the night) was dark horse and the iconic musician, Jaden Smith. Now it’s hard to write about Jaden without mentioning his mother and father, so I won’t. But you get it. The boy came from legends. But what was incredible to see if that he has made a name for himself based solely on talent, depth, and diversity alone. He is probably one of the only under 21 year olds in not only the music industry but in the entertainment industry alone, that has reached more intellectual levels than many artists in the game. His music reaches parts of the brain that opens you up to thought, praise and questions everything. Which is what I absolutely respect and admire in him as a person. His songs are not only something to dance to, while you’re dancing you’re forced to really think about the fuck is going on. It’s weird. He’s good man. He’s really good.
Back to the man himself, also, straight to think, he’s only two years older than Jaden and TYLA, makes you realise that these “kids” really are on to something with their music.
The simple reality is Post Malone has become hard to escape. Like really hard. His music is on repeat in almost any club or student bar, music channels and radio stations, he's in the movies (Spiderman, if you didn’t know) and he’s making features upon features almost every few months.
While Post has been delivering music for the past four or so years, his 2018 successes placed him firmly in rap game’s consciousness – and apparently, many older crowds too. Like mums. I can’t make this up, every second person I saw last night was there with their mum. If you were stuck on what to get mum for Mothers Day, apparently tickets to Post Malone was the direction everyone was taking.
Luckily if you are still looking for mum’s present, there are a few tickets to his show for tonight’s gig.
The show started with a literal bang (I’m sure many of the reviews are gonna kick off this part of the article with that joke) as fireworks welcomed the red solo cup drinking rapper. He announced: "I'm here to play you the musical stylings of Post Malone and get f... up while we do it." - which now looking back, must be like an opening line for all of his shows.
Lets skip to about three songs in. Post Malone, is having the time of his life, jumping around and BOOM, jumped to far and landed straight into a twisted ankle. Like twisted like he couldn’t walk and had request a chair to perform his next few songs. I was holding out to see him go nuts for his hit single “WOW” but baby had to sit still and use his arms instead. Don’t worry Posty, myself along with 12 thousand other fans jumped for you instead.
Later, he asks "Does anyone smoke weed?" And it was at this time I realised I close to a class room of kids under the age of 12 around me. The feeling of an awkward turtle soon washed over me. More so when they cheered and no parent in sight did anything.
And then the time came, what everyone in there was hoping he would do. The shoey. Now if you don’t know what a shoe is, well, you pour whatever drink you’re drinking into the shoe and proceed to skull it from the shoe. Yeah, sorry mum. He didn’t even get the words “Does anyone have a shoe” out of this mouth before one came flying perfectly on stage. It was hilarious. And yes, twisted ankle and all, he blessed us all with… The Shoey.
Apart from him, the stage was pretty bare. I mean, smoke, lights, fire, but there were no dancers, there were no other musicians. It was just Post and an incredible laser light show to distract from this emptiness.
I did at some point start to wonder, though, beyond the obvious lights and up and down on the stage, what is this concert about? Usually artists won have some sort of theme, story or back drop. But none last night. The bass was non-stop, unnaturally so, my entire body was rattling for most of the night, and the volume at most times was so loud you could barely him. If I didn’t’t know the words, I wouldn’t have known what he saying. However, Post is a great producer and his music makes for a very good playlist addition. Songs such as I Fall Apart and Go Flex prove his excellence as a songwriter.
Being a child genius when it came to his work and really only a handful of rappers that dabble and dabble well in not only rap but rock as well, you can tell the prodigy has a lot still up his sleeve. Coming in at 23 and already having so much in the world, you start to wonder where he intends on taking his talent. It was a great finish, and soon after, my friend txt me and said, I have a title for your review, “No Encore Needed” - and he was right, as Post limped down the stairs, (dude I hope you went to the A&E straight after) to backstage and curtain fell.
Post Malone is playing one final show at Auckland's Spark Arena tonight - Sunday May 12.