By Jessica Clayton
Staff Writer
Anticipation. When will he come out? What songs will he play? What’s going to happen? The lights dim, silence overcomes the crowd. The beat drops and out comes Mac Miller and his gang, piling on a stage equipped with a park bench, a playground back drop and an ice cream truck to glorify the central theme: Blue Slide Park. At first, the music is hardly audible through the screaming fans crammed into a space suited for 2,000 organized people, not crazy, wild animals who all want a piece of the artist.
Mac Miller performed at the Fillmore in Charlotte, Nov. 27. I was blown away by how similar the live music was to the pre-recorded albums and just the excited energy of the whole scene.
Mac started with some old favorites and after that, boy, was I in for a surprise. He left the stage and then reappeared with a fancy white guitar and a microphone and began singing covers in acoustic! I was really impressed with what I saw: a more serious side of him, playing songs such as “Wonderwall,” “Sweet Home Alabama” and “I Try.” While keeping this mood, he transitioned into personal songs like “Poppy,” “Another Night” and “Missed Calls.” I don’t know about everybody else, but that just sealed the deal for me. Who couldn’t fall in love with him? Mac finished with the more popular songs from Blue Slide Park and closed with “Donald Trump.”
I was disappointed that he didn’t perform a lot of the better songs from his album and instead played on the safe side with the more commercial, well-known songs like “Frick Park Market.” I wanted to see all of his talent, not just the few songs everyone knows him by.
What really intrigued me though, was how connected I felt to the 19-year-old rapper and the rest of his fans. Who can relate better to a teenager than another teenager? Mac lives the life every kid would want to live, and he was not afraid to scream his extraordinary lifestyle to the audience. It didn’t feel like a big shot, over the top concert, but more like the kid across the street put on a show for all the kids in the community. It was a nice change from the “I’m-larger-than-life” attitude of many celebrities. He talked to the crowd about things related to our lives and what goes on in the big, bad teenage world in an uncut, uncensored way. To me, he appeared to be an average, everyday kid I would sit next to in class. Fame hasn’t seemed to change him.
If I ever get the chance, I will definitely go to another concert because I left with a new respect and love for an artist who wasn’t afraid to uncover a different side of himself. The concert got my adrenaline pumping, heart racing, mind spinning, gave me a sore throat the next day and a memory that lasts a life time, all in one four hour session, and I loved every second of it.