Last Sunday, at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX, the stadium lights came on following Childish Gambino’s performance of ‘This is America’, even though there were a predicted four songs left in the set. The crew began taking apart the stage, but since Glover had failed to come out and actually announce the set was cut short, everyone waited in the crowd shouting “ENCORE!” for around half an hour.
During this crowd upset, my friend Steven ran out and asked every guard in our section if the concert was really over (it felt as if the opener, Rae Sremmurd, had played longer than Gambino had). Every single one said “yes it’s over”, so we left the stadium around 15 minutes after the lights came on. We were beyond bummed having missed out on hearing ‘3005’, ‘Redbone’ and ‘Sober’.
Needless to say, everyone was in complete denial the show had ended. My brother and his girlfriend remained in the stadium until a voice came over the PA system announcing that Glover would not be returning to the stage and the concert was really over.
Desperate to know what had happened, I continued to ask every security guard we came across if they had any information on why the concert had ended so early, and finally someone let us know that they heard over the microphones that Glover had rolled his ankle in a miscalculated dance move during the choreography for ‘This is America’. Following that Sunday concert, it didn’t cross my mind that Childish Gambino may no longer be performing both weekends at ACL, but low and behold he has canceled his ACL appearances and the rest of his 2018 tour.
Lil Wayne is said to be replacing his time slots at ACL, but let’s get real, we are all beyond devastated that we will not get to see Childish Gambino at ACL next weekend.