Photos by Virgil Solis
The Under The Influence Tour had a pretty impressive line up of some up and comers in the game, including the likes of Joey Badass, Smoke DZA, and Trinidad James, but it was B.o.B., A$AP Rocky, and Wiz Khalifa that would go ahead and close out the night. B.o.B. was the first of the three to take the stage and set the tone for the rest of the night. At the time of his performance, many had still not yet arrived as people were still continuing to fill up the venue. As he played through his set, more and more people started to get into the performance, and once his twerk team got on stage, the audience really go into it. He played some of this popular songs, but it was “Nothing on You” where the crowd got excited, and you could hear them recite every lyric throughout the venue. What I thought was pretty cool was when he stopped in the middle of his performance to take a big group picture of the crowd for his Instagram, which you can see here.
Next up would be A$AP Rocky, who I came to see since it had been a little over a year since I saw him perform live. He came out with a lot of energy during his set, and people were really pumped to see him, but it wasn’t until A$AP brought out B Real from Cypress Hill when the crowd really flipped out. Together, they performed the cult classic “How I Could Just Kill A Man,” and from there on, he had the entire venue in the palm of his hand. It was really cool to see B Real come out, and it was something that neither I or the crowd could have expected. I’m stoked I got to see the two on stage together. It was also dope to see A$AP come out with a live band and not simply just a DJ and a hype man; the band added to the whole experience. He ended the night with his more popular songs, like one of my favorites, “Peso,” as well as “Goldie,” and finally closed it out with “F**ckin’ Problems.” All in all, I really digged A$AP’s performance, and I could tell the audience did too.
Last up was the headliner of the Tour, Wiz Khalifa, and you could just see by the look of the crowd that the majority of them were there to see him. I did see a lot of A$AP fans, but the Wiz fans clearly outnumbered them, judging from all the band tees. When Wiz took to the stage, the crowd really got into it, and it seemed the crowd got larger. Wiz really got into his performance from the get-go, and when he performed “The Thrill,” the crowd was really behind him, reciting literally every word to the point where I couldn’t even make out his voice. The same could be said when he came on stage for “Work Hard Play Hard,” and for a lack of a better word, he did come out hard. Like A$AP before him, he also had a live band, and there’s just something about listening to that track with real instruments that made it one of the better songs of the night. I give it up to Wiz – he put on a good performance and played for almost an hour and a half. One reason for it being that long, though, was that he had like three to four costume changes throughout his set. By the end of the night, Austin had a great night of music, and the Under The Influence Tour gave them their money’s worth.
