ASAP Rocky & ASAP Mob, Schoolboy Q, Danny Brown
Friday, November 16 at The National
A couple weeks ago I made my way to The National for the very anticipated Long.Live.A$AP tour featuring Danny Brown, Schoolboy Q, A$AP Rocky, and the A$AP Mob. Due to some confusion I was not able to catch Danny Brown's set, which was one that I was looking forward to, but you can’t win them all.
Making the best out of my situation, I finally walked into the venue as LA native Schoolboy Q was performing songs from his hit album Habits and Contradictions. Those who were not familiar with Schoolboy Q before going to The National that night caught a proper performance that was one of the best that I have seen from an opening act in a long time. His interaction with the crowd made his performance fun to watch, and his overall set was very energetic, bringing his image to life.
After that was all done the headliner, A$AP Rocky, was due up next. I could not control myself, thinking back to last February’s show, which left many of us that were there that night in disbelief at Rocky's classic performance and brought me back for round two. Finally after a couple minutes of waiting, the curtains opened and A$AP came out with the same energy as I remember from his last show at The National. He came out performing the songs that made him one of hip hop’s most discussed acts of the past year. As the show went on, though, I felt that the energy and enthusiasm was dropping, little by little.
I think what really killed the show for me was the performance of the A$AP Mob. They performed songs from their recent compilation mixtape, Lords.Never.Worry. The overall performance was not bad at all, do not get me wrong, I just felt that it should not have been part of A$AP Rocky’s set. I am all for putting on your team, but it has to be done right. There was a lot of back and forth between Rocky and his crew that gave the show a recurring hiccup the whole night. Whenever Rocky went back to his set things were lifted back up. The highlight of the show was when he performed his two collaborations with Schoolboy Q, “Hands on the Wheel” and “Brand New Guy.” They instantly brought back the hunger and energy I was expecting to see from the whole show.
Overall I did enjoy myself at the show, and from the looks at it when it was all over so was most of the crowd, but I just expected more growth from last year's show. It could be that A$AP Rocky is concentrating more on his crew then his own career at this time, but whatever it is, I'm sure that this won’t stop me from purchasing his debut album, LongLiveASAP, which is set to come out sometime next year.