Loud bands, fried food and a large, gyrating crowd defined the "Big Green Live" outdoor concert, held Saturday on Gold Coast. The show, which featured Mike Posner, Wale and Gym Class Heroes, had all of the ingredients needed for the ultimate concert-going experience.
Before the headlining performers took the stage, DJ Whack-A-Tone, also known as Greg Dona '10, kept the crowd entertained with remixed versions of popular songs in anticipation of the opening act, Mike Posner.
All smiles and laughs, Posner kept a conversation going with the crowd, flirting with girls and wondering if he would be able to quickly pick up pong. Posner played favorites like "Smoke and Drive," "Still Not Over You" and "Drug Dealer Girl."
"I describe my music as pop music you don't have to feel guilty about listening to," Posner said in an interview with The Dartmouth
That's an accurate description, considering many of his songs are remixed versions of Top 40 hits, branded with the sound of his unusual, husky voice.
Posner, a senior at Duke University, said that even though he performs every weekend on the road and hangs out with Wale and Jay-Z, he's still just a normal college student.
"I'm living the dream," he said. "I get paid to party at other schools every weekend."
Posner only started singing about a year and a half ago he was making beats for other artists before he started writing for himself.
"I just got tired of having to funnel all of my ideas through other people," he said.
Talking to Posner was like talking to an old friend, and it was easy to forget that he's a burgeoning artist with a major record deal and a new mixtape, "One Foot Out the Door" (2009), coming out on Oct. 29.
Following Posner was the breakout hip-hop star Wale, who appeared on stage almost immediately after he arrived at the concert with girlfriend Solange Knowles.
Wale, who has visited Dartmouth once before, has performed with Gym Class Heroes on VH1 and frequently performs with Posner, with whom he shares a manager.
In an interview with The Darmouth, Wale said that he played an important role in getting Posner into the spotlight.
"I kind of set up the management with him," he said. "I was always familiar with his music and one of my managers signed him."
Wale closed his act with his most well known song, "Chillin," while the audience supplied back up lyrics chanting, "Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye," and Lady Gaga's hook blared through the speakers.
Wale also covered DJ Class' "The Ish" and Kanye West's "Touch the Sky," among other popular hits.
One of the highlights of Wale's stage time, however, wasn't the rapping. After concert security escorted off the set several female students Wale had invited on stage, he expressed his displeasure by encouraging the crowd to tell off "the police," using profane language in an almost two-minute-long chant.
Later this year, Wale is scheduled to begin a tour with Jay-Z and Lupe Fiasco to promote his first full album, "Attention Deficit" (2009), which drops on Nov. 3.
After an hour-long intermission, Gym Class Heroes closed out the night. The band played its most popular songs, including "Clothes Off" and "Cupid's Chokehold," as well as less well known songs like "On My Own Time" and "Peace Sign/Index Down." "We usually find ourselves on college campuses playing welcome back concerts," drummer Matt McGinley said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "A lot of the kids at the college are our age or close, so I like this kind of show because the kids get what we're talking about."
McCoy's current solo undertaking, which he calls The Lazarus Project, will be released later this year.
Gym Class Heroes, as a whole, just started recording its new album in an abandoned church in upstate New York.
"We were just looking for an empty place to record somewhere rural enough where we could make noise at any given hour," McGinely said. "It's got this ancient and creepy feel. Our only entertainment the whole time we were up there is this Victrola, which was like the very first record player ever, and there were only records from the 1920s and '30s, so staying up there was really creepy actually, but it was fun."
