Nicki Minaj

     Inspired by Rosie and Sophia Grace's youtube video of themselves wearing tutus and rapping Nicki Mina's "Super Bass", my sister and I had to see Minaj perform live while "repping" our own tutus. We are exactly like the little girls in the video because we love pink and we love rap (she is clearly the one who raps, and I'm her "beat girl ). When my birthday and college graduation occurred at the same time she knew the best possible gift for me would be Nicki Minaj tickets!

FLASH FORWARD

     We went crazy at the Nicki show! We wore grown up dresses instead of little girly tutus, but she was still the rapper and I will always be her beat girl. As you can read from the buildup, costumes were basically the highlight of the show. In fact, Nicki changed costumes four times during her (umm 45 minute?) show.
     For her show opening, (which was one of the best I have ever seen) Nicki donned the stage draped in a heavy, black robe while dancers wearing black robes and masks hunched around her. The backdrop exploded with images of flames coming through arched, Gothic windows. She began by giving a mosaic speech about her journey into music, "In the beginning there was a girl.", she said. The rest of the evening was more or less cat suits and tutus. Her songs coordinated with her sets and costumes for example, "Beez in the trap" she wore Generously cut "jeggings" in front of a graffiti covered set. Seriously, I am impressed by her thematic song presentation and commitment to her show.

Young the Giant

Drinking Beer

with Potential Employers and Minors

     I saw Young the Giant at a small performance space in Memphis, TN where they appear to have a young following of high school kids and their parental guardians. It was an all ages show, but they served beer; so of course, my friends and I got smashed with a bunch of teenagers and midlife crisis. Before the band donned the stage we were mingling (within our legal limits) and I had a pleasant conversation with a man who needed a personal assistant at his publishing house, which remained unnamed. I then proceeded to explain to this man that I was not only 5 drinks deep, but I hate answering phones and doing menial tasks. I believe my exact words to his suggestion of making a calendar were, "Oh that sounds terrible! i just don't give a sh**, I seriously just could not care if I tried." 

     Finally, the house lights dimmed and we returned to our respective parties, as a sea of teenyboppers flooded the floor.

     Young the Giant has some amazing radio hits including "My Body", "Apartment", and "Cough Syrup". Ironically, the crowd was filled with people who have never had their own apartments and mostly likely can not related to the lyrics "I am waiting for this cough syrup to come down". I'm a big fan of the band, so I was reasonably excited to see them perform and the young crowd was energetic, while not having a Justin Bieber-like level of emotion. The band was surprisingly energetic given their small performance space and I found myself singing along to songs I didn't even know! OK, so that was the alcohol singing, but I think Young the Giant has a niche for writing songs with a very singable hook or chorus. 

      They performed songs from their debut album, which is aptly entitled "Young the Giant". Jacob Tilley (guitar), Eric Cannata (guitar),Payam Doostzadeh (bass) had a playful way of dancing around the stage while they played and had surprising ease at keeping the music melodic while still straying from the studio recorded sound. Vocalist, Sameer Gadhia, proclaimed his lyrics and hooks with passion and, what appeared to be, self restraint to keep himself from bounding off the stage into the audience. The kids in the crowd were going wild and hanging on his every word (a few claimed to be rolling on moli, but I seriously doubt that). After we believed the set was over I turned to my friends and asked if they had played "My Body", which is their Platinum hit. Thank God! The band returned to the stage to perform their last song "My Body" and it was great. I think it was a cheap stage trick to act like the show was over, then come back to play their biggest hit, but I loved it!

      Absolutely, stop what you're doing go listen to, download, purchase, follow, and buy tickets to Young the Giant!