On August 8th, Vince Staples performed in Salt Lake City, Utah as part of the weekly summer Twilight Concert Series at the Gallivan Center. The concert was the fourth of the summer following shows headlined by Hippie Sabotage, Blind Pilot, and Young The Giant. The last two shows of this year’s concert series are Courtney Barnett on August 15th and Santigold on August 30th. 

Of all of the shows announced for this summer, I had been looking forward to this one the most since it was announced earlier this year. Keep reading for my analysis of the show and what you missed out on if you didn’t attend!   

Beginning of the show

The gates of the Gallivan Center opened at 6pm and the music started around 6:30pm. Everything was running smoothly with the openers performing their sets until about 7:15pm. Right around that time is when a huge thunderstorm hit and the show had to be delayed due to lightning strikes. The delay went on for nearly an hour, making for some shocked and peeved concert-goers.

Luckily the rain started to clear up around 8:15pm and the crowd ended up getting blessed with mostly clear skies for the rest of the evening. There were still sprinkles of rain here and there, but nothing worth shutting the show down again over. Now that the skies were clear, everyone was on edge while waiting for the Long Beach native Staples to come out and perform for them.   

Staples makes his appearance in SLC

After the DJ warmed the crowd up with music for around 30 minutes, Vince Staples finally made his appearance in SLC around 8:45pm. He came out to FM! track “FUN!” and pumped energy into everyone immediately. Following the intro track, he performed a few of his Big Fish Theory songs including “Big Fish” and “745”. These ended up being some fan-favorites for the evening, gathering great reactions from those in attendance. 

As the show went on, Staples played tracks from nearly every era of his music with the inclusion of some of his most popular features. He played Summertime 06 bangers “Senorita” and “Lift Me Up”, as well as Prima Donna titular track “Prima Donna”. He then played his feature on Gorillaz track “Ascension” to the delight of many mutual fans, along with his Black Panther The Album feature on “Opps”.

Near the end of the show is when the crowd really started getting into it and having a great time. Possibly the best reaction of the night came when Vince performed one of his most popular tracks, “BagBak”. The crowd went crazy when the politically-charged bouncy banger came on. You could feel the energy and it was my personal highlight of the whole show.

As the show was ending, Staples capped it off with a bang. He performed an essential banger in “Blue Suede” and then ended the show with his magnum opus (as he referred to it) in “Norf Norf”. The crowd roared in appreciation as Staples gave them a final shoutout and walked off the stage into a cool SLC night.          

Final thoughts

It would be easy for me to say the typical “wow, that was such a great show”, but I feel that it is necessary to heap praise on Vince Staples for his performance in SLC. That show, especially for being such an affordable one, was honestly amazing. You could tell that Staples is very passionate about giving everyone in attendance a great experience. 

Overall, even if you aren’t a huge hip hop fan I would recommend seeing a Vince Staples show when you get the opportunity. He involves the crowd very well and performs all of his essential tracks. He sets the precedent for what a hip hop show should be and could be a model example for other up-and-coming hip hop acts.