George Watsky has had a couple of turbulent years behind him; gaining widespread popularity via Youtube in 2011 and attracting attention in a quite negative way last year, the young rapper is becoming more well-known every year. With increasing attention also comes the opportunity to go on worldwide tours, which the San Francisco native has been doing for quite some time. Last year the Diggers had the opportunity to see him in Amsterdam for his Cardboard Castles tour in Paradiso, where Watsky played an amazingly intimate concert for his audience, which is an experience we yearned to be a part of again. Luckily for us, 2014 brought a new album called All You Can Do and an accompanying tour; October first, it was time for us to see if George Watsky would do justice to the tour’s name and give us all he could do once more.
This year, the setting was slightly different. The venue had changed from Paradiso to the Melkweg, which was paired with a slight increase in the capacity. Fortunately this increase in capacity came with almost no reduction in intimacy, one of Watsky’s trademark features. Combine that with the fact that the Melkweg is one of our favorite venues anyway and you’ve already satisfied an important requirement for a good concert.
Anderson Paak, one of Watsky’s band members, opened the concert in a soulful way. Being quite a talented vocalist and drummer, and having a small band to support him, he took his audience on a journey that was eclectic in the fullest sense of the word. Alternating between his own songs and covers (including an awesome version of Seven Nation Army) that spanned multiple genres, all while interacting with the crowd, Paak did exactly what he was supposed to do: warm up the audience. Unfortunately the last song’s trap beat sounded too un-originally plastic to us and could surely have been left out, but that’s only a small blemish on an otherwise solid performance; Paak’s charisma, musical talent and seemingly casual, self-assured attitude made him a great opening act.
After a brief pause to get some beers, it was time for the Lafontaines, a five-membered band that came all the way from Glasgow to support Watsky. Entering the stage with a loud “What’s up Amsterdam?” and roaring guitars, the band caught the crowd’s attention and got them to jump to their heavy drumbeat immediately. Though the band could simply have been a less impressive crossbreed of the Beastie Boys and Linkin Park, they turned out to be unique soon enough, proving to be very well capable of blending hip hop and indie together into a whirlwind that was only interrupted to catch a breath in between songs. As Paak did, the band took their time to interact with the audience, crack a few jokes and make them bust some moves, which is again exactly what a supporting act should do. Some sweaty 50 minutes later they left the stage, leaving an amped up audience hungry for more.
Another short break gave the crew some time to clear out the stage for the man everybody came to see: George Watsky. Accompanied by his band Crème Fraîche, Watsky came out strong, capturing the audience with his presence from the second he started rapping. Old songs and new ones alike flowed from his mouth like verbal waterfalls in the impressively fast fashion that we’re used to hearing from him. And engaging his listeners from the beginning, Watsky did an even better job in terms of interaction than his supporting acts did, mostly because the audience was more familiar with his songs.
The concert had a nice flow to it. Riling up the crowd with songs like Whoa Whoa Whoa was nicely balanced by quieter songs like Cannonball which, by creating an intimate moment with Watsky as the focal point, was one of the show’s highlights in general. Other memorable moments include an amazing medley of Watsky’s older songs that provided plenty of opportunity to shout along with the lyrics and some of the moments that revolved around the individual band members. Being a true team player, Watsky made sure that the focus wasn’t only on him and gave his band members plenty of room to express themselves and play solos. This led to an amazing drum solo that lasted for a couple of minutes and an intimate song by Anderson Paak and the band’s bassist.
No matter how many songs were played, the audience was so captivated by the music that they did not seem to get tired. Unfortunately though, all good things have to come to an end eventually, as did the concert after almost 1.5 hours. After an encore that did justice to the entire evening, the people were left satisfied and were provided the opportunity to say hi to Watsky, shake hands and take pictures shortly afterwards.
Overall, we can conclude that the evening was not only a concert, but a true event in its own right. Not only Watsky provided a great show, but Anderson Paak and the Lafontaines surely contributed to the vibe of the night as well; as the evening’s name suggested, the artists surely made it seem like they did all they could indeed. We’d therefore recommend seeing any of the artists by themselves, but even more so when they’re performing in the same event. Unfortunately though, us Europeans seem to be in for quite of a wait until that’s going to happen again. However, if you’re a resident of North America, Australia or India, you’re in luck. If you want to be a part of the amazing experience that is a George Watsky concert, there are ample chances to do so. Tour dates can be found here, so be sure to get tickets for when the tour hits your home town. (San Franciscans, put November 28 in your agenda.) All we can do for now, is wait.
-The Biologist and the Chemist
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