Post Malone @ RAC Arena
w/ Jaden Smith, Tyla Yaweh
Friday, April 26, 2019
Post Malone’s show at RAC Arena on Friday was surprisingly excellent. He was joined by Tyla Yaweh, and Jaden Smith (yes, Will Smith’s son) at the packed out Arena for the first show of his Australian tour.
Tyla Yaweh opened the show, but he appeared to be lip-syncing along to tracks, including She Bad, Gemini and High Right Now. Jaden Smith provided a better performance, although his auto-tuned vocals were sometimes drowned out by the backing track. He had his strange but cool music videos playing as the background set and bought out special guest Harry Hudson for Just Slide. He also did tracks about iconic characters Goku and Batman, as well as crowd hit Icon which he moonwalked during. Smith provided a great stage presence – if only his vocals could have been a touch louder.
The air in the Arena was electric as Broken Whiskey Glass started playing and the lighting and smoke machine rig that had previously been lowered onto the stage started to lift. Post Malone appeared through a stage lift and got the crowd screaming and singing along straight away, as he walked up and down his runway stage.
Fireworks, pyrotechnics and flames lit up the arena and started the show off with a bang (literally, a really loud bang; I jumped), and the momentum continued for the rest of the show. Malone was sporting an Australia themed tracksuit which included the flag, flowers, plants and snakes on it, which was a nice touch for his opening night.
The general admission section was jumping for the whole show, but what really made it a great night was the people in the seating section standing and dancing to all their favourite tracks, including Better Now, Rockstar and Congratulations – which bought almost the whole arena to their feet.
Malone’s stage presence was also excellent, saying thank you after every track, explaining what some of his tracks were about (which helped him build a great connection to the crowd), and dancing up and down his catwalk during songs.
Setlist highlights included the rapper jumping from hit to hit when he played his latest single, Wow, followed by Psycho and I Fall Apart, which got emotions running high amongst the audience members. He later bought out an acoustic guitar and played my personal favourite Stay which was a really sweet moment.
The lighting and set design on the show were incredible, with the aforementioned pyrotechnics really adding something special to the show, while at one point the lights included some blue lasers that, when mixed with the smoke, looked like sections of sky.
Unfortunately, Post forgot some of the words to his breakout single White Iverson and had to restart it from a certain point in the song, but he got the words the second time around, and the crowd weren’t phased by the small mishap.
He closed the night with a string of hits including Sunflower from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Rockstar, which saw him smash the guitar he’d used just a little earlier all over the stage, and Congratulations which felt like a lovely celebration of Malone’s career and his fans, and was a great way to finish the show. Fireworks confirmed that the end had arrived, and despite some chants that started in the general admission section, there were no more songs to be played.
Surprisingly, the rapper played more tracks from his debut album, Stoney, than he did from his most recent release, beerbongs & bentleys, although the crowd seemed to love the setlist anyway, with a singalong shadowing almost every track.
Unfortunately, the lip syncing and auto-tune the supports provided were a bit of a let down to the night as a whole, because Post Malone definitely delivered an excellent and unexpected arena show. If that is what a stadium rap show looks like in 2019, count me in.
KIERRA POLLOCK
Photos by Damien Crocker
