Concerts
Page: 63
Harry Styles wrapped up his 15th show at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on Sunday night (Jan. 29) and to commemorate the impressive string of sold-out shows, the venue honored the pop star with his own special banner.
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In a clip shared by a fan to Twitter, Styles is seen gazing up at a massive green banner with his name written underneath his tour title, Love on Tour. He then raises his fists up in victory, while the arena breaks out in cheers.
Styles’ Love On Tour is in support of Harry’s House, his Billboard 200 chart-topper that features the hit single “As It Was,” which was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 15 weeks.
The superstar is nominated in Big Four categories at the 65th annual Grammy Awards, set for Feb. 5 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. He’s up for six awards total, including album, record and song of the year.
Styles will also be performing at the Grammy Awards, along with Lizzo, Bad Bunny, Mary J. Blige, Brandi Carlile, Luke Combs, Steve Lacy and Sam Smith & Kim Petras. Styles performed “Watermelon Sugar” on the Grammy telecast two years ago. He also won his first Grammy for the track – best pop solo performance.
In January 2018, Elton John announced his impending retirement from touring, but only after a worldwide, multi-year farewell tour to say goodbye. He kicked off the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour in September of that year and began a record-breaking run, though it isn’t over yet.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour has grossed $817.9 million across 278 shows so far — more than any tour in Boxscore history. Bypassing Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour ($776.4 million), it is the first tour in Billboard’s archives to cross the $800 million benchmark.
The Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour was promoted by AEG Presents, with select local partners in certain international markets.
Sheeran set the record in 2019 toward the end of his 258-show run, replacing U2’s The 360 Tour ($736.4 million). Both of those tours went far and wide, playing six and five continents, respectively, and spending most, if not all, of their time in stadiums. Conversely, John spent 2018-20 and the first quarter of 2022 in arenas in North America, Europe, and Oceania, before advancing to stadiums in each continent for the tour’s final year.
That advancement paid off. John’s first three North American legs combined to $268.2 million over 116 shows. His stadium run from July – Nov. 2022 brought in $222.1 million, or 83% of his arena grosses, in just 33 shows.
Similarly, his European stadium outgrossed his arena leg, $69.2 million to $49.9 million, despite playing 12 fewer shows. And most recently, his average per-show gross in Australia and New Zealand swelled from $2.5 million in 2019-20 in arenas to $5.1 million in stadiums.
In total, the January ’23 Oceania leg grossed $40.9 million and sold 242,000 tickets. Combined with updated North American grosses to account for previously unreported platinum lifts, the Farewell tour’s total revenue surges passed $800 million, with 51 European shows still to play through July 8.
While the tour’s first couple years in arenas certainly laid the foundation for John to scale the all-time ranking, it took three full legs in North America and Europe to hit the all-time top 40, at $217.8 million after 108 shows. His return to the U.S. and Canada in the Fall of 2019 lifted the tour’s total to $292.3 million, moving up to No. 20.
The following Oceania leg from Nov. 2019 – March 2020 (it was mercifully scheduled to end days before the global lockdown began) brought the gross up to $385.4 million, lifting to No. 13. John’s post-COVID North American arena run added $100 million, climbing into the all-time top 10 at No. 6 with $485.7 million. The stadium run in Europe brought him to No. 4, followed by a nudge to No. 2 with North American shows, finally ascending to the all-time crown with a brief run in Oceania from Jan. 8-24. 6
Sorting by tickets sold, John still has a way to go on the all-time ranking. The Farewell Yellow Brick Road has sold 5.3 million tickets, ranked behind Sheeran and U2’s previous record-holders, in addition to The Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge Tour (1994-95), Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams Tour (2016-17) and Guns N’ Roses’ Not in This Lifetime… Tour (2016-19). Sheeran’s Divide Tour still stands atop the all-time attendance chart with 8.9 million tickets.
While it’s next-to-impossible for John to catch up to the tickets-sold record with just one leg of shows, his European dates will allow him to pass Coldplay and GNR, presumably moving into fourth place on the all-time list. Returning to “intimate” arenas for the final leg, John could be setting his sights on another unprecedented benchmark, sure to approach and likely to cross $900 million by his final performance.
Dating back to reports for John’s Ice on Fire Tour (1986), and including his share of co-headline runs with Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Tina Turner, and, many times over, Billy Joel, John has grossed $1.863 billion and sold 19.9 million tickets over 1,573 reported shows. That’s the highest career gross and attendance for a solo artist in Boxscore history, having passed Bruce Springsteen and Madonna while on this tour. On Billboard’s 2019 recap of the top 125 artists of all time, John finished at No. 3, behind The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Before playing his piano ballad “Faithfully” on Journey‘s opening 2023 date at an Oklahoma casino theatre on Friday (Jan. 27), Jonathan Cain told about 3,000 fans: “It’s good to be back. All together again.”
It was a unifying sentiment after months of Journey acrimony. Although the classic rock band sold 296,000 tickets in 2022 and grossed $31.9 million, according to Billboard Boxscore, Cain and his longtime bandmate, lead guitarist Neal Schon, have been battling legally since late October over Schon’s expenditures on Journey’s American Express card and Cain’s participation in an event at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort.
As Journey prepares to return to arenas Feb. 4 in Allentown, Pa., the two-hour show at the Choctaw Grand Theatre in Durant, the first of two nights, was generally harmonious and upbeat.
The sextet’s three focal points — frontman Arnel Pineda, Schon and Cain — dominated the spotlight. Pineda, who replaced long-departed frontman Steve Perry in 2008 and sounds exactly like him, was in constant motion, running, jumping, waving, pointing and leading singalongs. Schon soloed constantly, opening the first song “Only the Young” with a burst of noise on his PRS NS-15 guitar and improvising with hard rock power chords in unexpected ways at the ends of rock radio fixtures “Wheel In the Sky” and “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’,” and Cain anchored “Feeling That Way” and “Who’s Crying Now” on his red piano.
Journey’s live formula is simple: play the beloved hits from the ’70s and ’80s, even if Schon and Cain are the only remaining band members from that era. They dispatched with their signature “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which has nearly 1.5 billion plays on Spotify alone, as the third song, then closed with na-na-na-ing, whoa-oh-whoaing and general earworm-rocking with “Wheel In the Sky,” “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” and the finale “Any Way You Want It.”
Relying on a setlist similar to much of the 2022 tour, Journey challenged the crowd in subtle ways, opening with lesser-known hits like “Only the Young,” a 1985 single first released by Scandal, then “Stone in Love,” from 1981’s Escape, later throwing in “Be Good to Yourself,” from 1984’s Raised On Radio, during the punchy, four-song finale. Most experimental of all was Schon, who wore a black denim jacket, an open-collar shirt and several necklaces, and spent much of the night engrossed in his guitars, coming up with different improvisational angles and colors for hits you thought you knew, dabbling in glam rock, metal and even new age music, peaking with a three-minute solo before “Wheel In the Sky.”
Schon and Cain consistently kept roughly 20 yards of distance between them, as Cain, mostly stationary in a dark suit coat, held down stage right with four different keyboards. Schon spoke sparingly, but Cain told the story of writing “Faithfully” on a lonely 1981 bus ride, concluding, “We pay a price for a life like this,” then encouraging the crowd to support the U.S. armed forces. The two cooperated musically, especially on “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’,” when Cain played boogie-woogie runs and Schon dropped in sympathetic guitar riffs to augment the piano. With the exception of Schon, who sang minimally, all six band members harmonized on vocals, nicely backing Pineda’s impossibly high range on “Anytime.”
With Schon and Cain in separate corners, and drummer Deen Castronovo, bassist Todd Jensen and second keyboardist Jason Derlatka holding down the middle, it was Pineda’s job to enliven the crowd, which he did, energetically and enthusiastically. He was the one member of Journey who seemed happy to be there, jumping on a pedestal and throwing his head back to hit those high notes, patting Schon on the back, fist-bumping Cain, signing autographs as songs were going on and, long after the others had walked off stage, sticking around for crowd selfies. Rock stars may “pay a price” for the rock-star life, but, Pineda suggested, it’s fun, too.
Another December Boxscore report, another triumph for Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Since Billboard launched its monthly touring recap in February 2019, TSO has made a habit of topping each December’s Top Tours chart, cranking up its annual seasonal routing to the max. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Trans-Siberian Orchestra grossed $50.9 million and sold 691,000 tickets over 71 shows in the 31-day period.
Peaking at four shows per day, TSO employs two ensembles. One travels the eastern half of the U.S. and the other covers the western half, each playing matinee and primetime concerts in some markets.
The band hit a high point on Dec. 23, with two shows at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio ($1.7 million) and two at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. ($1.9 million), totaling $3.6 million in one day from four concerts. It was one of five days in December that it grossed more than $3 million.
TSO’s entire 2022 haul generated $66.5 million in gross revenues from 914,000 tickets sold – with 77% of that sum coming from December dates alone. That’s the second-highest grossing tour in the band’s history, narrowly missing 2019’s pre-pandemic $66.8 million. Still, this was its biggest December yet, at $50.9 million, eclipsing 2019’s $46.8 million.
In 2021, TSO played 98 shows – equal to 2022’s run – but the Omicron wave slowed ticket sales, dipping to $42 million in December, and $54.6 million for the entire run.
In all, Trans-Siberian Orchestra has grossed $734.1 million and sold 14.1 million tickets over 1,789 shows. The modestly priced (and mostly U.S.-based) family show hovers around the top 20 grossing acts in Boxscore history, but is within the top 10 according to tickets sold, slightly less than Coldplay’s 14.6 million, but moving past Bon Jovi’s 13.3 million.
With its annual trip to the summit, TSO’s third monthly Boxscore win puts the act in rare company. Since the launch of Top Tours in February 2019, only Elton John (six) and Bad Bunny (four) have spent more time at No. 1, while The Rolling Stones match with three months of its own. Considering John and Bad Bunny dominated the previous four months, it hasn’t been since July that an act scored its first Top Tours victory, when Coldplay ruled with $66.7 million.
And while John, the Stones and Coldplay have each disappeared for now, Bad Bunny remains a factor on the December charts, at No. 3 on Top Tours and at No. 1 on Top Boxscores. He crowns the latter chart with his two shows at Estadio BBVA in Monterrey, Mexico. That double-header earned $17.1 million on Dec. 3-4, pushing World’s Hottest Tour to a final gross of $314.1 million.
In December, Billboard named Bad Bunny the top touring act of 2022 based on the combined activity of the spring’s El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo and World’s Hottest Tour, accumulating $373.5 million in the tracking period of Nov. 1, 2021-Oct. 31, 2022. But with additional grosses in November and December, he finished the year with $434.9 million, the biggest calendar-year gross for an artist in Boxscore history.
In between TSO and Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee finished the year at No. 2 on Top Tours, hitting a new peak after spending October and November at No. 3. His December haul began with three shows at Mexico City’s Foro Sol (after playing two shows at the venue in November) and stretched through a final American run, ending with two shows at Miami’s FTX Arena.
Over 15 shows, he earned $37.5 million, pushing his farewell tour’s total to $197.8 million. That makes it the second-biggest tour by a Spanish-speaking act, following, who else, Bad Bunny and his own fall ’22 tour.
Daddy Yankee follows Bad Bunny, again, by hitting No. 2 on Top Boxscores with those three Foro Sol shows. The entire five-night run grossed $23.6 million, split between $9.8 million on Nov. 29-30, and $13.8 million on Dec. 2-4.
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Among the highest grossing venues of the month, a combination of holiday-themed concerts and sporting events make it the No. 1 on the ranking among venues with a capacity of 15,001+. In most months, the venue atop that chart is also the No. 1 venue among rooms of any size, given the high capacity. But, just as TSO annually shoots to No. 1, December’s crown is virtually reserved for New York’s 5,900-cap Radio City Music Hall.
Home of the Christmas Spectacular starring The Radio City Rockettes, RCMH grossed $76.7 million across 130 shows (averaging more than four performances per day), trampling the arena’s $22 million take. In all, between Nov. 18 and Jan. 2, the Rockettes show brought in $96.9 million and sold 945,000 tickets. If counted as a musical touring act, it would quite easily rule the Top Tours and Top Boxscores charts.
Though not a touring act per se, there are two Jingle Ball appearances on Top Boxscores, another seasonal regular. Of six reported Jingle Ball events, totaling $8.7 million, highlights are New York’s show at Madison Square Garden ($3.5 million; 18,178 tickets) and London’s two-night event at the O2 Arena ($2.5 million; 27,080 tickets).
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Lewis Capaldi is the latest celebrity to make a surprise appearance during The 1975‘s tour, and he hopped onstage at the band’s Newcastle, England, show on Tuesday (Jan. 24) to deliver a cover of Taylor Swift‘s “Love Story.”
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“I was going to sing one of my songs next, but I thought it would just be better to play a Taylor Swift song,” the Grammy nominated artist told the crowd in a video he shared to TikTok, before delving into the opening lines of Swift’s Fearless hit. He also performed The 1975’s fan-favorite track, “Antichrist,” off the group’s 2013 self-titled album.
Capaldi’s cover comes just two weeks after Swift herself joined The 1975 at the O2 Arena in London on Jan. 12, where she live-debuted her latest hit single, the eight-week Billboard Hot 100 chart topper, “Anti-Hero.” She also performed The 1975’s “The City” on acoustic guitar.
Among the string of stars who have also joined the British rock band on their global tour over the past few months are Charli XCX, Phoebe Bridgers and Jack Antonoff. The 1975’s UK tour continues until Jan. 30, before they head off to South America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand in the spring.
New Order is among the starry guest list invited to perform at South By Southwest (SXSW), the annual showcase event and conference taking place March 10-19 in Austin, Texas.
The Manchester legends are part of the third wave of SXSW performers, a mix of legends, newcomers and everything in between, set for this year’s 37th edition.
A dive into the latest round reveals a number of standouts, including U.S. rapper Killer Mike, German electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream, “Messy in Heaven” singer Venbee and hotly-tipped Adelaide, Australia indie two-piece Teenage Joans.
Other highlights from the fresh batch of artists, announced Wednesday (Jan. 25), include Anwan “Big G” Glover (Washington, D.C.), Coco & Clair Clair (Atlanta, GA), Diana Burco (Bogotá, Colombia), DJ_Dave (New York, NY), Ekkstacy (Vancouver, Canada), Isabella Lovestory (Tegucigalpa, Honduras), and many others.
SXSW announced a first round of nearly 200 artists back in October; that list included Armani White, Algiers and Balming Tiger. A second wave dropped in December, and featured The Zombies, Lemon Twigs, Ambré and Osees.
The SXSW Music Festival will roll out from March 13-18.
Confirmed speakers this time include Nick Jonas, Blxst and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, Warner Chappell Music co-chair/CEO Guy Moot, Signal and Cipher chief Ian Beacraft, plus authors Douglas Rushkoff and Joost Van Dreunen.
The live-music showcase is a buzzing part of a much larger festival, which was founded in 1987 and is dedicated to celebrating entertainment and culture.
Among SXSW’s partners for the 2023 show are Anniversary Group, Atomic Music Group, Athens in Austin, British Music Embassy, Don Giovanni Records, Fire Records, FOCUS Wales, Gorilla vs Bear, Jazz re:freshed Outernational, Pop Montreal, M for Montreal, Music From Ireland, New West Records, Space Agency and Wide Days Scotland.
As previously reported, SXSW will expand to Sydney for seven days and nights from Oct. 15-22, marking the event’s first foray outside the United States.
SXSW signed a “lifeline” deal with P-MRC, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and MRC, the companies announced in April 2021, making P-MRC a stakeholder and long-term partner with the Austin festival. P-MRC is the parent company of Billboard.
Visit sxsw.com for more.
Stevie Nicks has some big plans for 2023. The Fleetwood Mac singer first announced tour plans — a small series of co-headlining shows alongside Billy Joel — back in November, and she received so much enthusiasm from fans, she revealed Monday (Jan. 23) that she’s chosen to extend the run of previously announced dates.
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“Surprise!” Nicks wrote on Instagram, sharing the official tour poster — a photo of her in a black top hat and matching sheer veil, the tour dates below her — to her Instagram. “Tickets for my 2023 tour go on sale Friday at 10am local time. Which show will we see you at?”
After a March 10 co-headlining show with Joel in Los Angeles, Nicks’ solo trek will officially begin March 15 at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena. The White Witch will make stops in Las Vegas, San Francisco, New Orleans, Toronto, Chicago and more before concluding at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center on June 27.
As for the Grammy winner’s co-headlining dates with the Piano Man, she’ll do nine dates separate from her own solo trek, which are further detailed in her Instagram post.
See Nicks’ new 2023 North American tour dates below.
STEVIE NICKS 2023 TOUR DATES
Wed Mar 15 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
Sat Mar 18 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile Arena
Thu Mar 23 – San Francisco, CA – Chase Center
Sun Mar 26 – Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 Center
Thu Mar 30 – Oklahoma City, OK – Paycom Center
Sun Apr 02 – New Orleans, LA – Smoothie King Center
Wed Apr 05 – Birmingham, AL – The Legacy Arena at BJCC
Fri May 12 – Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena
Tue May 16 – Knoxville, TN – Thompson-Boling Arena
Mon May 22 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena
Thu May 25 – Orlando, FL – Amway Center
Tue Jun 20 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
Fri Jun 23 – Chicago, IL – United Center
Tue Jun 27 – Louisville, KY – KFC Yum! Center
Drake‘s Sunday night show at the Apollo Theater was momentarily put on pause after a man fell from the lower mezzanine balcony into the audience.
“Just gotta make sure somebody’s OK,” the OVO rapper said after a crew member ran onstage to inform him of the fall.
The incident occurred about 90 minutes into the show, just as 21 Savage walked out to perform “Rich Flex” and a slew of other Her Loss hits alongside Drake. The pause lasted about 15 minutes as venue staff treated the injured man.
“Unfortunately, last evening an incident occurred with an audience member who landed in the orchestra from the lower mezzanine,” the venue said in a statement posted to Instagram on Monday (Jan. 23). “Drake, Apollo and SiriusXM halted the show immediately when learning of a potential fan injury and standard protocols were taken. They were seen immediately by EMS on site. The fan and other audience members reported that they were OK. No major injuries have been reported. The Apollo is investigating the situation further.”
In partnership with SiriusXM, Drake announced the concert as a one-night only event last fall. It was originally meant to take place Nov. 11 but was moved to early December to mourn Takeoff, whose shooting death occurred a little over a week prior. The show was then delayed again to January due to production issues, and a second show was added.
The two-night event attracted an A-list crowd, including Justin and Hailey Bieber, Kevin Durant, Odell Beckham Jr., Aaron Judge, A$AP Ferg and more, as Drake performed a mix of his biggest hits and deep cuts spanning his catalog. The Toronto native also brought out Dipset and Lil Uzi Vert as special guests, and hinted at a possible tour with 21 this summer.
Kali Uchis‘ 2023 is booked and busy. On Monday (Jan. 23), the singer confirmed that she will be releasing an album titled Red Moon in Venus, and will be supporting it with a headlining North American tour that will kick off in spring.
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Red Moon in Venus will be released via Geffen Records on March 3, and is currently available to pre-order and pre-save on streaming services. Speaking on the record’s overarching theme, Uchis explained that “love is the message.” “Red Moon In Venus is a timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith, and honesty, reflecting the divine femininity of the moon and Venus,” the singer shared in a press release. “The moon and Venus work together to make key aspects of love and domestic life work well. This body of work represents all levels of love — releasing people with love, drawing love into your life and self-love. It’s believed by many astrologers that the blood moon can send your emotions into a spin, and that’s what I felt represented this body of work best.”
The Red Moon in Venus tour will start on April 25 in Austin with a stop at the Moody Amphitheater in Waterloo Park. Uchis will make stops in New York City, Philadelphia, Orlando, Atlanta, Boston, Toronto and more before concluding the trek on May 30 at Phoenix’s Arizona Financial Theatre. Raye will support Uchis on all dates except May 26, 28 and 30.
Before heading out on her headlining tour, Uchis will have a chance to get her feet wet with a series of festival appearances starting in March. Festival season will see the “I Wish You Roses” singer perform at Lollapalooza Argentina, Chile and Brazil, Colombia’s Esteréo Picnic and Coachella.
See Kali Uchis’ album announcement and tour dates below.
Tour dates:
March 17—Santiago, CL—Lollapalooza Chile
March 19—Buenos Aires, AR—Lollapalooza Argentina
March 24— São Paulo, BR—Lollapalooza Brazil
March 26—Bogotá, CO—Estéreo Picnic
April 16 & 23—Indio, CA—Coachella
April 25—Austin, TX—Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park*
April 26—Houston, TX—713 Music Hall*
April 27—Irving, TX—The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory*
April 30—Miami, FL— FPL Solar Amphitheater at Bayfront Park*
May 1—Orlando, FL—Hard Rock Live Orlando*
May 2—Atlanta, GA—Coca-Cola Roxy*
May 4—New York, NY—Radio City Music Hall*
May 7—Philadelphia, PA—The Met Philadelphia*
May 9—Washington, D.C.—The Anthem*
May 10—Boston, MA—MGM Music Hall at Fenway*
May 12—Toronto, ON—Coca-Cola Coliseum*
May 14— Detroit, MI—The Fillmore*
May 16—Chicago, IL—Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom*
May 18—Denver, CO—Fillmore Auditorium*
May 21—Portland, OR—Keller Auditorium*
May 23—Vancouver, BC—UBC Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre*
May 24—Seattle, WA—WAMU Theater*
May 26—San Francisco, CA—Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
May 28—Las Vegas, NV—The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
May 30—Phoenix, AZ—Arizona Financial Theatre
* with RAYE
“I’d like to take you on a little journey tonight, if that’s ok?,” Drake asked onstage at the Apollo Theater on Saturday (Jan. 21).
After two postponements last fall, the Toronto superstar finally graced the stage at the legendary Harlem venue on Saturday night for his first of two shows there this weekend. In partnership with SiriusXM and his radio show Sound 42, the concert was originally meant to take place on Friday (Nov. 11) but was moved to early December to mourn Takeoff whose untimely death occurred a little over a week prior. The show was then delayed again due to production issues.
Twenty-five minutes after his scheduled set time of 9:00 p.m., a white screen lifted to reveal Drake sitting in a bedroom made to look like his old room in his mother’s basement. The other side resembled a record label office.
Drake then took fans and guests on a journey through his career. As he sat on the edge of the bed “where I wrote a lot of these songs,” he said, he took the crowd back to his early days with songs like “Marvin’s Room,” “Say Something” and “Practice.” After 15 minutes there was a slight pause before the set changed to an office, representing the times he played his music at record labels, only to get rejected. Early hits like “Best I Ever Had,” “Over,” “Headlines” and “I’m On One” soundtracked that scene.
Drake powered through a good mix of his biggest hits and deep cuts. Below are eight best moments from Drake’s night at the Apollo.
Free merch
Fans and guests were treated to free OVO T-shirts that were especially made for the show. The shirts were white with the OVO owl and the Apollo Theater’s logo on the left chest with the original show flier printed on the entire back.
The star-studded crowd
What’s a Drake show without a star-studded guest list? Notable people like Elliott Wilson, Kevin Durant, Odell Beckham Jr, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Ice Spice, 2 Chainz and more were in attendance for Drake’s first show in, what he said, “like five years or some s—.” A few times throughout the performance, the rapper also thanked his longtime friend and producer Noah “40” Shebib, who was in the crowd.
Drake’s nods to his Degrassi days
As he opened the concert with Take Care cut “Over My Dead Body,” Drake sported his Degrassi character Jimmy Brooks’s basketball jersey with baggy jeans and white Air Force 1s. “That’s what this sequence is about, me trying to grind my a– off and let people know that I’m not in a wheelchair in real life [and] Canadians can make music or whatever it was,” he joked later in the night after the record label scene.
The night was about gratitude
About seven minutes into his set, Drake took time to address the crowd. “I wanted to make this show about gratitude. This is a little story we put together about my deep love for my family, for my dear friends and for each and every one of you that have been supporting me for a long time,” he said. The star said he associates New York City with feelings of making it, and he revisited those feelings of gratitude by performing his biggest hits and deep cuts spanning his catalog thus far.
Drake being a mama’s boy
We all know that Drake is mama’s boy at heart. The rapper pointed out his mother, Sandi Graham, sitting in the mezzanine and thanked her for everything she’s done for him.
Dipset and diamond bracelets
After the record label scene, the stage design transitioned to a Harlem bodega and Dipset emerged along with Drake, who was wearing Cam’ron’s original pink mink coat and headband combo. The Harlem rap group — which includes Cam’ron, Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and Freekey Zekey — performed their songs “I Really Mean It,” “Dipset Anthem” and Jones’s solo hit “We Fly High (Ballin’).” “I know I talk a lot about being influenced and I got a lot of love, but like … these guys right here from Harlem made us dress different, talk different, walk different, rap different, all the way in Canada,” said Drake after they performed. Jones then gifted Drake a diamond bracelet with jewels resembling the Dipset bird, praying hands, OVO logo, OVO owl and the Apollo logo.
’21, can you do something for me?‘
Fans were in for a treat when Drake brought out 21 Savage to perform a slew of Her Loss songs for the first time together. The two started with “Rich Flex” then tag-teamed for “Privileged Rappers,” “Spin Bout U,” “Jimmy Cooks” and “Knife Talk.” The Atlanta rapper told the crowd that his friendship with Drake is beyond music saying the Toronto native Drake would check on him often after they met in 2015. “He helped me every step of my career behind the scenes,” 21 said before hugging his friend.
Drake hinted at a summer tour with 21
“You should come see us this summer, we might be around,” Drake said before 21 left the stage.