Reading the press after Travis Scott's Melbourne show earlier this week, it is easy to see how much of a beat-up the Circus Maximus tour has become.
Yet, last night's sold-out event at Brisbane's 60,000 capacity Suncorp Stadium (26 October) provided an incredible – and very positive – show, disappointing anyone looking for a negative story. It is true, however, there was a surging energy in the crowd ahead of last night's show, at times looking ready to boil over amongst some of the younger, mainly male fans.The Circus Maximus tour itself is of course a huge event. Having toured the globe since kicking off 12 months earlier, Brisbane was the second last show before the tour winds up in New Zealand next week.
Travis Scott is first and foremost a hugely popular – and ten-times Grammy-nominated – rapper, hailing from Houston, Texas. Of course he's also a songwriter and producer, having worked with some of the biggest rap artists. He has a catalogue of four studio albums, all of which have run to #1 on the US music charts, typically debuting at that level.
There have certainly been controversies over the years, foremost of which was the crowd crush in 2021 at a hometown show leading to a number of deaths, and a range of arrests mainly for typical incidents such as drunk and disorderly and punching his bodyguard. It was with some trepidation that I set off with my young son to watch the show unfurl.
The show kicked off at 8pm with a DJ putting on a 20-minute set, just as the crowd on the floor was starting to get rowdy. The crowd was parting in large circles, with a few mainly young males running through swinging wildly, performing backflips, and generally heightening the tension, before each circle closed; at that point the crowd would swarm forward, before slightly receding like the tide after a large wave has hit the shore.
The DJ was high up on his own platform of Roman ruins and it's fair to say the first notes hit the approximately 60,000 crowd with a massive boom. He played the set in darkness, with a slither of light behind him throughout, which highlighted the crowd's excited movement. The set contained a few pieces from UK rapper Central Cee and even a brief moment of Backstreet Boys, which had the stadium in full voice.
After the DJ set, the tension continued to build. The best Mexican Wave I have seen circled the stadium a dozen times, and the crowd started chanting "we want Travis, we want Travis". The back and forth on the floor continued, with larger circles forming, followed by a repeat of the chanted countdown "5, 4, 3, 2, 1". This crowd had been well and truly warmed up and needed to see their hero.
At 9pm, the stadium lights were dimmed, and everything went red, as Scott was displayed on the massive screen behind the set, walking to the stage. We followed his walk right through the bowels of the stadium, then as he hit the stage there was an explosion of lights and sound, with a huge pyro-technics display. He stood alone, in a black singlet, long black baggy shorts, bandana and sunglasses – a simple look and all black.
The opener was 'Hyaena', the opening piece from his current album, 'Utopia'. The energy was unbelievable, displaying Scott in black and blue on the huge screen behind the elaborate stage, and on huge towers adjacent to the stadium (similar to Kanye and Jay-Z who had a similar visual impact when I saw them at New York's MSG over a decade ago).
For 'Modern Jam', Scott was further back onstage, silhouetted against a rainbow-type lighting arrangement on the screen. He then announced he wanted to pick a few of the crowd to come up onstage. He called up a couple of youths, and half a dozen shirtless males, all with bright yellow full head covering, holding 'free hugs' and 'free thugs' signs.
The newly-formed group joined a throbbing circle onstage, and remained onstage for two pieces, the second of which was the happily named 'Type Sh.t'. The crowd raised a massive roar for the youngest of the group, as Scott passed a pair of his branded sneakers when he headed back to the crowd.
The crowd's massive roar reinforced my feeling that there had been nothing but high energy and positivity in the show. 'Nightcrawler' and 'Sirens' followed. Scott was soon seen high on an elevated scissor-platform – of course themed as Roman ruins – and again we could see his figure silhouetted against the massive screen behind him, with blue lasers running across the stage, and a series of large yellow spotlights covering him and then the crowd.
'Butterfly Effect' was one of the hits played at this point, and at times the floor beneath us was absolutely heaving. (It is easy to believe the recent reports that his shows in Italy and Latin America had triggered earthquake reports and warnings!).
A pair of gorillas joined the stage to dance for 'Circus Maximus', before Scott took a brief hiatus off the stage. Everything was fully lit up at this time, and again we could see the circles and gaps appearing in the crowd on the floor. Scott rejoined just in time, and the huge screen had become a large gilded frame, within which we saw various feeds from the crowd. Panning through the crowd, the closeups showed the many smiles of the concert goers.
The next piece was 'I Know?', and the crowd could be seen on screen screaming the lyrics. The one song from 'Utopia' that creates even more mayhem than any of his other music, is of course 'Fe!n'. In a night of tireless energy, this was the song that promised to raise it to an even higher level, as desired by Scott.
The opening two 'chords' sent the crowd crazy (I say 'chords' because for the full evening, there were no musicians onstage with Scott, it was him alone performing to pre-recorded background music). The crowd chanted the refrain at maximum volume. Then as the end of the song was reached, as he does typically, he re-started the song and played it again in full, only I thought the energy was raised to an even-higher level the second time. Then incredibly, for the third repeat, the energy and volume from the crowd seemed higher yet again. He repeats this piece in concert as he thrives off this energy at his shows.
'Sicko Mode' was introduced with a pair of flames that ran outward from the stage to the adjacent towers, then back toward the stage. At the exact point the flames reached the huge screen displaying Scott live, he jolted as though shot, then launched into the song. It was a great effect, and the whole floor section of the crowd had their arms raised toward the stage for the duration of the piece.
'Goosebumps', one of his best-known songs with well over two billion streams on Spotify alone, followed. It was a louder, apparently slightly faster version, leading to a similar peak in tension and energy as the earlier ‘Fe!n'.
The evening wound up with Scott performing 'Telekinesis', but only a small part was performed onstage. He walked around the pit between the stage and crowd, surrounded by body guards, still singing, before walking out of sight, back into the depths of the stadium, the video on screen capturing the singing exit in full.
This was an amazing evening, the crowd afterward seemed in raptures with the 75-minute Scott set that they had just witnessed. His spirited live act was beyond anything I have seen from an energy perspective and I appreciated the positivity of the evening.
