by Ryan Reyes
photos by Khammy Phanthavong
It’s 10pm and I find myself at The Garrick Centre shoe-less; security was performing a very thorough pat-down. I hope they noticed my tight sock-game. Local up and comers Goody, Rawg, Chris Bennett and Teddy T performed before main opener R.O.Z. of EMB. He started his set off with one of my favourite tracks off his Piff Music mixtape the super smooth “Rhythm of the Night.” A few tracks from his latest mixtape Piff Music 2 were performed; most notably “’97” which features D-Block’s Styles P. He ended off his strong set with the melodically hypnotic track “Rollin.’”
A warning appears on screens letting the audience know that there’ll be bright lights and lasers. This performance will be an entertaining one. “That’s that shit I don’t like!” blasts through the speakers as Big Sean finally appears on stage. He delivered his verse on the “Don’t Like” remix with conviction.
During “My Last,” his song with Chris Brown off his debut album Finally Famous, you can hear the audience reciting the lyrics. Gotta love it when that happens. There were a few tracks from his latest mixtape Detroit that made it to the setlist. “24K of Gold” featuring J.Cole, a mellow track with a catchy hook, provided a welcome break between the harder-hitting songs. He told the story of how he had a 3.7 GPA in high school and had a full ride scholarship to Michigan State but decided to make music with Kanye West instead of attending university… cue “Mula.” “Ain’t nothing more important than the mula!”
The crowd’s energy was peaking and the women were shrieking by the time “Chardonnay” rolled around. Soon after he tweeted about how live the Winnipeg show was. I didn’t think the show could get any more “live,” but it did when the GOOD Music posse cut from their debut album Cruel Summer “Clique” dropped. “Mercy” had so much bass it made my nose itchy. His smash hit “A$$” was very bootylicious. The Garrick could have doubled for a twerk convention. “Supa Dupa Lemonade,” his last song of the night left the audience thirsting for more.
