The Rodeo Tour with Travi$ Scott & Young Thug
The Rodeo Tour with Travi$ Scott & Young Thug
by James White
Who was the guy that sat down and thought, “Man, Travis Scott, Young Thug, and DJ Metro Boomin’ should go on tour,”? I’d like to personally deliver him a hand salute. The two rap stars and their DJ brought the “Rodeo” to The Pressroom in downtown Phoenix, and did they ever.
Scott’s LP titled Days Before Rodeo was released in August of last year and was named by many hip-hop heads as one of the best projects to come out that year. Travis and his partner in crime, Young Thug, shared two tracks on the project and had massive success with one in particular, the turn up anthem “Mamacita.” Travis announced the tour in late January, and I honestly didn’t know which to be more excited for: the tour or the poster for the tour itself. That’s how I should’ve known I was getting into some real heat.
The first step to understanding the intensity to this concert is to understand the caliber of the fans here. The day of the show, around 3pm, I went by the venue to get familiar with where it was and buy my ticket. When I arrived, there was already a fan and his friend waiting by the front door. To put that more into perspective, the show started at 9 pm. In fact, the show was supposed to start at 8, but the meet and greet that was held prior to the show ended up running too long, due to the high volume of fans at the meet and greet. So as you can see, Travis and Thugger have some pretty loyal fans. And they wore it on their sleeves during the show.
It was pretty interesting how these two split up their time on stage; they did it in a way I haven’t seen any partners on tour do it. Typically, one artist comes out an does a set, and then the headliner of the tour does their set, then they both come out at the end of the show and do the one popular song they have together. Sike! Travis and Young Thug spent the concert sharing the stage individually: Young Thug would come out first and do a few songs, then abruptly walk off as Travis makes his rounds. Now I get to talk about the real fun part of the concert: the experience. From start to finish, it was one of the most intense and high octane shows I’ve ever been to. The traffic in the crowd was thick, the body heat was reaching Kelvin levels, and the wild ones were out: all the correct ingredients for a sweatbox rager. Travis had incredible microphone presence. He demanded energy without even asking for it when he was on stage. I almost died during these songs: “Basement Freestyle,” “Quintana,” “Don’t Play,” and most definitely “Mamacita.” All these moments served their purpose, though. All the treacherous moshing endured seemed to move me closer up before I even knew I was at the front barrier. And I loved it every minute of it.
The two headliners weren’t scared to interact with their fans either, which was refreshing. Not always in the most positive way, though. During the show Travis called out one of the girls in the front for not acting a fool (like everyone else) while he was performing. “Bitch, you wearing a f*cking LA FLAME shirt [Travis goes by this name], you better act like you f*cking know,” Travis said to the woman. Travis’ upright honesty just means he wants us to get our money’s worth though, right? At least that’s how I took it.
Travi$ and Young Thug have incomparable energies that are perfect for their audience. It’ll be interesting to see what Travis has up his sleeve next, with his studio album actually titled Rodeo, being scheduled to release later this year. For a musical manifestation of a real life rodeo, it wasn’t half bad.
