Post Malone kicked off his Australian tour with an explosive new set at Brisbane Showgrounds last night (23 November), illustrating his musicianship and pervasive likability.
Support act Angus Stone opened the night with a relaxed set featuring his signature folk style, adding heavier elements to his performance to create a more raw sound.Posty's arrival onstage was preluded by a long string intro; a unique and refreshing sight at a modern hip hop gig – a label that Post has clearly outgrown.
Emerging straight into classic hit 'Better Now', the crowd was captivated right out of the gate, and he kept that engagement high all night with dazzling fireworks and eyebrow-singeing pyrotechnics.
Image © Bill Prendergast
Post Malone has a thoroughly commanding stage presence, but not in the way of the domineering rockstar. Rather, he's a goofy and relatable everyman, mock-twerking to his songs and inviting fans up on stage to do shoeys together five separate times, with the most notable drink taken from an old, very worn, moon boot.
The entire first section of Post's show was high energy: 'Wow', 'Psycho', and 'Goodbyes' set the bar high. With five albums worth of hits backing him, Post can afford to stack them, an unexpected approach which blew the audience away and kept everyone guessing.
His partial cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams' ('Hollywood Dreams /Come Down') punctuated the beginning nicely, adding a chill interlude and serving as a reminder of Post's rock roots.
Image © Bill Prendergast
The middle section of the show steered to a much heavier direction. Ozzy Osbourne's face leered behind the stage on 30-foot screens as Post smashed out fan favourite 'Take What You Want', crouching to the ground as he ended the song with raw metal screams.
A raucous performance of 'Over Now' transitioned smoothly into 'Rockstar'; always guaranteed to stir the crowd into a frenzy.
To say that Post's live set has evolved is an understatement. His older shows mostly consisted of him singing to a track on an empty stage (as most rappers do), which he pulled off immensely well as helped by his larger than life personality.
Nowadays, the stage is packed with a huge array of musicians, from the heavily tattooed orchestra to drummers and DJs. The electronic aspects are certainly still present, but serve to thicken the live instruments rather than making up the whole sound.
This adds an intense energy to Posty's set – all of the components come together to build a diverse and layered cacophony of controlled chaos.
Post's musical origins lie with rock – he used to play in a metal band, and he's a guitarist first and foremost, evident as he played often throughout the night.
He's teased a return to rock many times throughout the years, most notably with his live-streamed gig of Nirvana covers during lockdown and Rage Against The Machine tributes; fans have been long waiting for a rock album.
Image © Bill Prendergast
Thursday's show was heavy, guitar-led, and explosive, and it seems that rather than taking a sharp musical 180, Post Malone is easing his fans into a new sound by gradually transitioning his live act into a rock show.
Post faces the same dilemma as many modern artists – how to work collaborative tracks into a solo show. Most of his hits feature verses from other rappers, but rather than losing a huge chunk of his show to pre-recorded tracks, Post either sung everything himself or subtly cut down the songs, keeping the set list authentic and real.
The singular exception to this was 'Rockstar' – 21 Savage's verse is too iconic to be removed.
The latter end of the show was more nostalgic as Posty performed several tracks from his notorious 2016 breakout album 'Stoney', following 'Congratulations' with an impressive fireworks show and a moving speech about self-love, exiting the stage with a sincere thanks to everyone that came.
Image © Bill Prendergast
He wasn't gone for long, and had everyone moving with an uplifting encore of 'Sunflower' and recent single 'Chemical'.
The close relationship that Post Malone has with his fans is endearing – within a crowd topping 20,000, every concert-goer felt personally acknowledged and appreciated.
Movingly, Posty invited a fan onstage to play acoustic guitar for 'Stay'; a touching moment of collaboration between musician and super-fan. This was solidified as once the show finished, Post dropped to the front of the crowd to spend a good 20 minutes chatting and shaking hands.
More photos from the show.
