Our latest venture into the world of Red Bull Sound Select’s #30DaysInChicago concert series, we headed back to the Metro for Day 18, featuring Aminé, Pell, and A2. In the building along with me was my very dope POD comrade, Ellie, who was helping capture the vibes that night.
The night was ripe for headliner Aminé to demonstrate why he’s widely considered one of the best new names in the game, and the Portland man delivered. The Good For You cover art inspired a photo op in the balcony, with fans able to sit on a blue toilet as an all-yellow background completed the scene.
Aminé showed off his charm right from the start, which included a mashup cover of TLC’s “No Scrubs” and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” at the beginning of his set. For banter in between songs, he asked people to raise their hands and use their fingers to show the number of times they’ve pronounced his name wrong only to laugh at what he saw in the crowd.
.@heyamine covering Kanye & TLC is why #30Daysinchicago continues to be such a dope experience pic.twitter.com/kNSbI1MNcn
— Pursuit of Dopeness (@PursuitDopeness) November 19, 2017
His stage presence was enough to make me think he’s one of the biggest acts around. The performance for “REDMERCEDES” had so much energy throughout the Metro that the vibrations emitted from the crowd could compete with the speakers. Fans hooted and hollered and jumped like crazy. “Wedding Crashers” was another one the crowd took over vocals.
At one point Aminé talked about how each patch on his pants represented a stop on his Tour For You, and got someone to come up and sign the Chicago patch and mark the end of the tour. When asking for some crowd participation on what the mega-tall fan onstage should write, the fans at first cheered loudly for that iconic local DJ ad-lib, “This Chicago…” but after a rep onstage consulted with the rapper, they went with the more PC option of “Obama forever.” Not a bad way to represent Chi-town.
The two biggest highlights were his performances of “Spice Girl” and “Caroline.” The first was an intense experience, as Aminé and the crowd traded bars for what turned out to be a spirited rendition of the track that would have moved you to join in and participate. For his hit song “Caroline” Aminé requested for all the phone lights to illuminate venue, and when he looked to his right he pointed to VIP and demanded they all did it too by exclaiming into the mic “I don’t care how important you are.” Aminé proceeded to sing the track a cappella, which shined a different light on it.
For the encore, he came back to the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” before belting out “Spice Girl” once more, and the fans were as up for it as when he first sang it earlier in the set. This guy is a real star and this concert was all the proof I needed to come to that conclusion.
S/o to Red Bull Sound Select once more.
Photo Credit: Oscar Oliva Jr. / Pursuit Of Dopeness; Ellena Rodriguez / Pursuit Of Dopeness
