2013 Concerts

As I was looking through my iTunes library, I came across some concert footage that I recorded earlier this. The videos were from the Tech N9ne concert in Lawrence, KS at the Granada Theater. After re-living this experience, it made me recollect on all of the concerts I was able to attend this year.

2013 was a great year in terms of concerts for me. Between seeing Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar in Kansas City, Baauer and RL Grime in Saint Louis, and seeing Crizzly & Figure, as well as Tech N9ne in Lawrence, I'd say it was a very good year.

The Kanye and Kendrick show was incredible. I purposely use the term "show" here instead of concert because it was so much more than just a normal hip-hop concert. Kanye's "Yeezus Tour" for 2013 was incredible in terms of music played, lighting used, stage set-up, and energy brought by the performers. Having Kendrick Lamar, one of the most talented hip-hop artists at the moment as the opening act, was the proverbial icing on the cake of the show. After seeing Kendrick perform all of his hits and rocking the 4500 person crowd ( pretty sad, I know), Kanye came out and made his presence felt immediately. The stage set-up for Kanye's performance was amazing.

The picture on the left shows the mountain and stage set-up that Kanye had on the tour

The picture on the right shows the stage which was able to be raised up 45 degrees





This was my second time seeing Kanye in concert. The first time was last year on the Watch The Throne tour in Kansas City. Jay-Z accompanied Kanye on that tour, so the Yeezus tour was my first time seeing Kanye live by himself (aside from an opening act). Of course Kanye performed all of his hits, including the entire Yeezus album. This was my favorite show of the year, but not by far.

Now, I do not want to bore you by writing multiple paragraphs on every single concert I went to, so I'll limit myself to describing one more show.

Seeing Tech N9ne for the first time was an exceptional experience. I had heard so much about how great of a live performer he is so I decided to buy myself a ticket. The show ended up selling out, so I am glad that I purchased the ticket a little early. The night of the concert, I arrived to the venue 45 minutes before the doors opened in hopes of getting a good spot to watch the show. After waiting outside in the freezing Kansas winter weather, I was finally able to get a decent spot inside the theater.

Below is a picture of Tech N9ne and Krizz Kaliko from my point of view:

 

After sitting through a couple of opening acts, including the Ces Cru who is signed to Tech N9ne's label, it was time for Krizz Kaliko and Tech N9ne to perform. Let me tell you, these two guys really know how to control a crowd. At first, they alternated performing some of their solo tracks, and then moved on to some of their hits that they performed together. Tech probably had the most energy of any performer that I have seen live. The only two that come close to him would be Lupe Fiasco, and Kanye. After the show was over, Krizz and Tech stayed and signed autographs at the merchandise booth which is one of the reasons they are such popular live performers. In fact, Tech N9ne is the number three hip-hop artist in terms of touring sales behind Kanye and Jay-Z.

So after seeing all of these great shows, I figured it was only right that I made a post near the end of the year recapping a couple of them. If either Tech N9ne or Kanye are ever in a city near you, I would definitely recommend catching the show. I know I look forward to seeing both of them again, hopefully in the near future.

Something pretty disturbing was brought to my attention yesterday afternoon.

As some of you may be aware, the Jordan 11 "Gamma" is releasing on the 21st of this month. Yesterday in my hometown of St. Louis, Champs Sports at the Galleria mall had a ticketing system for this sneaker release. The process involved people lining up outside of the store, telling the employee the size shoe that they wanted, and then they would be called next week if their size is available to be picked up.

Exhibit A:

This image of a line outside of a sneaker store in order to receive tickets for the chance to buy a shoe may be disturbing to some of you. If this is the case, you are in for some worse news...

Exhibit B:

Yes, this is a door that has been broken off by customers who were going to get in line. Not much else needs to be said because as they say, a picture says a thousand words. If you feel like you need to break off an automatic-opening door to get into the mall quicker, please re-evaluate your priorities/life in general.

(Pictures courtesy of twitter.com/SirEddieC)

So this is what it has come to...

I decided to start up this blog for a couple of reasons. The first of which is sharing my passion for certain topics. Whether that be sports, music, sneakers, or anything else I feel like talking about on a given day. The second of which is to attempt to have something to show to a possible future employer (if I ever get the chance).

See, at this current moment, I am a Senior at The University of Kansas who is majoring in English. So naturally the question I get a lot is, "Oh so you want to be an English teacher after school?!". My answer to this question is no. I want to be a journalist, and more specifically I want to be a sports journalist. Prior complications in my college career have stopped me from obtaining a journalism degree, so I decided to go with (what I saw as) the next best option, English.

Having given you all a brief background on why I started this blog, I hope I am able to provide some sort of content which you will enjoy, and hopefully this gives me some sort of platform later on in life.

P.S. - I apologize in advance if I am not the most active blogger in the world. I have a life.