Post Malone – Trusts Arena January 15, 2018

Music aside for a moment, there’s always something gratifying about being in a crowd that are all enthused and and full of love for a common thing. The crowd at American hip-hop/pop sensation Post Malone’s Monday-night Auckland stopover fell short only of Harry Styles’ army of screaming fangirls in terms of the loudest and most enthusiastic crowds I’ve ever seen, bearing in mind that Trust Stadium is a much cozier size than Spark Arena.

In fact both concerts were also similar in that I felt like the only person present not head-over-heels in love with the performer, something I have to take into account when attempting to write a review.

Onehunga’s own rap group SWIDT (See What I Did There) did a great job of warming up the sold-out venue with an energetic performance before Austin Richard Post, a.k.a. Post Malone, took to the stage to an eruption of cheers.

Before even beginning any music he took the time to “pay some respect” to hip-hop artists who had passed away within the last few months, mentioning Lil Peep and several others whose names I couldn’t catch – at this point in the night, Malone’s speech was already noticeably slurred. He then kicked off the set with Too Young.

From this first track onwards, the audience belted out every single word, and responded to the start of each piece with deafening cheers of recognition. It was this energy that was the much-needed redeeming feature of the show.

After the first track, the rapper-singer spent what felt like an eternity of music-less void asking the crowd repeatedly “is everybody ok?” to never-ending cheers of approval. At first it may have been warranted – jostling towards the front of the general admission area caused Malone to take things into his own hands and climb over the barrier to make sure everyone was “ok”, but after a while the repeated question rung hollow for want of some more music.

The lengthy gaps of talking between tracks continued throughout the set, made even more noticeable due to the strikingly short length of almost every piece. It’s a safe estimate to say that close to half of the time spent on stage was spent talking with no music playing. This was made worse by the fact that the show lasted for only a single hour, from 9:15 to 10:15, with no encore – disappointing for those fans who splashed out on hiked-up ticket resales after the show rapidly sold out.

This talking is fine for some artists who have things to say about their music, but Malone had nothing. His first long speal came with no context whatsoever about people posting fake photos of their apparent possessions on social media (???). His last one, before the final track Congratulations, was a painful rant about his high school peers that didn’t believe in his musical potential, and came off as an outlet for a still-recovering childhood ego.

Can we really blame his classmates though? While the songs were concise and well-crafted trap-infused pop gems, Malone’s microphone was often obscured by a backing track that played all the vocals for him at twice the volume. When he brought out an electric guitar to pick for one song it seemed more like a gesture to try prove himself as a versatile musician than anything else, and the wobbly stumbling-over-itself fingerpicking provided nothing of musical value to a set which could only ever succeed on the hype factor of his smooth hip-hop hits and the undeniable satisfaction of floor-shaking sub bass. (This is a satisfaction not to be underestimated though).

But perhaps all of this was besides the point. As he openly proclaimed during a tangent about his formative musical years, “I was shit then and I still am”. Cue the audience’s cheers. The night was all about having a good time, as he liked to repeat, and the crowd certainly seemed to be (aside from the multiple unconscious figures who had to be carried out by medical staff before the set even began.) Malone drew as loud a cheer for drinking beer out of an audience member’s shoe as he did for any hit single. And to finally confirm his show as a image-based gimmick, he smashed his electric guitar “Rockstar” style towards the end of the set – the guitar he had literally only used for a single 2-minute song and then probably kept on stage solely for that purpose.

In the end everyone – almost everyone – got what they paid to see: a display of strangely wholesome indulgence and liberation unhindered by things like, you know, delivering your vocals or anything like that. I get the feeling that if he focused a little more he could genuinely put on a musically competent show, as his songs certainly have that potential, but I also get the feeling he has no intention or reason to do so, and his audience couldn’t care less.

Ruben Mita

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