February 3rd, 2017. It’s early in the morning, and almost every student at Appalachian State University is awake, anxiously waiting to purchase tickets to the on campus Lil Wayne concert. People are hurrying to purchase general admission student tickets (which are cheaper of course), buying tickets in bulk for all their friends, and putting up snap stories of the ridiculously long line to checkout. Everyone is ecstastic about living out their middle school dream and singing along to “A Milli” with Weezy himself.
Fast forward to a week before the concert, and all of these people who rushed to purchase these tickets, are suddenly selling them. There are rumors circling as to whether Lil Wayne is actually coming to Boone or if it is all one big scam. Some even speculated that it wasn’t actually Lil Wayne, but an impersonator who would be performing. Whatever the reason may be, everyone suddenly started posting their tickets for sale everywhere, for as prices as high as a whopping hundred dollars per ticket.
I truly feel sorry for anyone who spent that much on a ticket, because you chose a subpar rap concert over what could potentially be 20 cookout trays.
Don’t get me wrong, I was super excited to see Lil Wayne perform live. He is an extremely successful, well known rapper, and the fact that he decided to visit the little town of Boone is something I am taken aback by. The thing is though, he was not worth all the hype.
I understand that the openings for big name concerts are never as “big name” as the main performer, but it seemed as if though the whole concert was the openers, with about half an hour of Lil Wayne. And what did we get in this short amount of time? Only a few of our middle school favorites, and not even played the whole way through. I was really counting on hearing “She Will,” “Right Above it,” or “How to Love,” none of which I heard.
I am not saying that Lil Wayne is an incompetent rapper by any means. I am just saying that with all the media, attention, and excitement this concert had beforehand, it certainly did not exceed nor meet expectations.
Did Weezy fulfill your middle school dreams? Or just reiterate the point your mother made when she turned the volume on the radio down whenever “Fireman” came on?