My Experience at The Kid LAROI’s End of the World Tour (Part 1)
Recently, I had the privilege of attending Australian teenage musician The Kid LAROI’s performance at Coca Cola Roxy in Atlanta, Georgia. After a two-hour wait in line (which paled in comparison to the seven-hour waits of other fans), me and five other friends finally made it inside the venue in anticipation of the concert. Throughout the incredibly high-energy show, I noticed several particular strategies The Kid LAROI–whom I will refer to as “Laroi” for the remainder of the article–and ericdoa–the concert’s opening performer–continuously used to make the night more engaging to those in attendance. You wouldn’t be wrong to consider this article a rhetorical analysis of the concert :)
The opening performer of the show, ericdoa, is an artist we’ve discussed on this blog before. Those who have read the article know that I am nothing short of a hyperpop enthusiast, so I was thrilled to watch him perform. Interestingly, I was among the very few people in the crowd who was familiar with the music. Usually, when an artist performs for a crowd alien to their music, they simply persevere through the performance as if they were performing to their most passionate fans, however, ericdoa instead opted to address the situation directly. After performing a few songs, ericdoa said something of the nature of, “I know you all are here to see The Kid LAROI, and we need to show him the level of energy he can expect, so I’m going to play some songs you guys actually know.” Within seconds, triumphant horns began to blow in our ears, and we all heard Grammy-winning song “family ties” by Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar booming through the speakers.
His action made several things aware to me; firstly, the crowd was capable of far more energy than they were showing ericdoa. It also showed me he was humble enough to empathize with his crowd and play somebody else’s music instead of forcing himself to be the center of attention. This paired with his constant reminders that the crowd was here to see The Kid LAROI and not him earned my respect and likely the respect of several other people in the audience.
