Photos by: Brendan Lee
Words by: Michelle Swami
The scene outside the Commodore was buzzin full of barely legal adults, in line to see 20 year old Chance the Rapper. Barely legal is not an understatement as I saw one girl ready to get in with her boyfriend, but the security at the Commodore insisted they flag down a police officer to make sure the ID was legitimate.
It was 9PM and the Commodore Ballroom was already half full. DJ Rashad and his teammate DJ Spinn hit the stage, starting to play tunes for the crowd. For those of you who don’t know, both DJ Rashad and DJ Spinn were influential in creating and producing Chicago Footwork and Juke music. Along with the fact they are from Chicago, you hear a lot of post-juke influences in Chance the Rappers music, which is why these openers were not that unsual for this tour, although the two play mostly electronic based shows vs. Hip-Hop concerts. The two got the crowd pumped up by playing the usual 2013 rap sing alongs. Drake, Kanye West, French Montana, you heard it all… until near the end, where DJ Spinn went on the mic to shout out “CHICAGO JUKE MUSIC. LET’S HEAR SOME FOOTWORK!” to approximately 6 minutes of that near the end.
As soon as DJ Rashad and DJ Spinn stepped off the stage, the front part of the Commodore was packed full people, ready to see Chance the Rapper’s Vancouver debut. Chance comes on, hoodie and baseball cap, starting things off with, what else? ‘Good Ass Intro’. Chance does a verse, with all of the Commodore rapping along, into ‘Brain Cells’. Chance then goes on to do a verse of ‘Nana’ and ‘Pusha Man’, all the while trippy visuals and videos are playing on the side video screens. Chance then suddenly leaves the stage, only to remerge with his live band, the Social Experiment.
As soon as the Social Experiment and Chance graced the stage, the mood softened a little bit as Chance went through a lot of his slower work. Starting off with ‘Everybody’s Something’ and doing a medley of slowly tempo songs which included, ‘You Song’ and ‘Lost’ to Chance stepping off stage again.
The Social Experiment’s horn section starts to shine as they go into a beautiful rendition of another 2013 critically acclaimed artist, James Blake’s ‘Retrograde’. Soon, the visuals on the screens start to show soft core porn and then out comes Chance and the soft mood has yet to shift gears as Chance goes into a rendition of Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’, a song he has done all throughout his tour.
Chance and the band soon step on stage for yet another encore, only for Chance to emerge, solo again. The energy was lively again as Chance did a few of his faster numbers, including his biggest hit to date ‘Juice’. A chant of “Chance the Rapper!” erupts as the rapper leaves the stage again.
Finally, Chance comes back to close the show off with his live band to do a few more songs, only to end with, what else, ‘Everything’s Good (Good Ass Outro).’
For a 20 year old from Chicago, with no official releases, seeing a packed Commodore Ballroom, on a Monday night is phenomenal. Seeing the majority rapping along, it’s hard to believe that many people downloaded his mixtape ‘Acid Rap’ for free and only by word of mouth. Not since 50 Cent, or more currently, Joey Bada$$ has an artist have a vigorous tour schedule without a official release of any kind. This was Chance’s first Vancouver stop and it definitely won’t be his last.