Kendrick Lamar’s Melbourne Show Was Part James Brown and Part Frank Sinatra

Image: rebekahdurkin

Rumours filtered through Melbourne's Rod Laver Arema last night as the crowd waited for Kendrick Lamar to take the stage. A guy braving a full tracksuit in the middle of the already packed general admission section told his friends that Lamar supposedly left his Auckland audience waiting for an hour. “I heard he only played an hour-long set there,” came the worried reply.

You could feel an anxiety rising, not because the soundcheck was stretching out, but because everyone was thinking the same thing: This is supposed to matter. In the five years since Lamar dropped Section.80, the Compton MC has managed to weave past all of his contemporaries, and earn the label of the voice of his generation. What if he didn’t live up to the hype?

Image: Ned Dorman

Everyone knew that they were seeing someone who would be remembered, someone who was at the height of their power. Lamar knew it too. He emerged to rapturous applause, the GA surging against the barrier, compressing to half its size as the crowd pushed closer to their idol. He flirted with the mic, teasing his first line out, walking away and coming back, before finally dropping into “For Free?”

Watching him live, in a show that thankfully lasted over an hour, the main takeaway was just how diverse Lamar’s offering is: He is just as comfortable letting the crowd loose on a track like “Backseat Freestyle” as he is pulling them in for a single spotlight rendition of “For Sale?”, punctuated with his signature hand gestures.

Image: paolo.barc

So much is written about Lamar’s artistry—his ability to pull experimental jazz, poetry, and politics into popular music—but he isn’t given enough credit for his skill as a live performer. His live show is completely devoid of ego, it was just shut up and play the hits Kendrick, and there were a lot of hits to get through. The other thing that quickly became clear is that Kendrick isn’t really competing with someone like Drake or even Kanye. He’s already in the league of James Brown or even Frank Sinatra—those old school consummate live performers, who are thinking every second about their audience.

Image: ryansheltonography

At one point Kendrick called for everyone in the crowd to switch on their phone flash, turning the arena into a sea of tiny lights. Old fans, new fans, all were just fans. That’s what will make him one of the true greats.