A little less than a year ago Calvin showed us the music video for Tyler The Creator’s “EARFQUAKE”. I’d been watching Calvin’s tastes shifting and expanding, and was excited about his foray into rap. At first it was a lot of the genre’s mainstays, your NWAs, your Tupac’s, your B.I.G.'s. Eventually this transitioned into more recent rap juggernauts, your Travis Scott’s, your Playboi Carti’s, etc… We had to have a bit of a chat regarding Kanye and how we’d like to try our best to not funnel any money his way (oh… pin in Kanye).
So in the spring of 2024 Calvin shows us the EARFQUAKE video and I feel all kinds of feelings. At this point I’ve known about Tyler The Creator for some years and had definitely listened to some songs. Plus my work had done a collaboration with his Odd Future crew.
Despite all of this I was pretty light on the Tyler The Creator lore. My only other tenuous connection was being told the story of Drake getting booed at Camp Flog Gnaw by a coworker who had been there.
So when he shows this video I was stoked because it was weird and awesome and beautiful. In other words. EARFQUAKE was on some other shit.
By the time the Tyler The Creator tour dates were announced in October of 2024 Calvin was all in. By and large the tickets that I buy are neither terribly expensive nor contested. As this was a bigger deal and things like 'presale codes' seemed to be required I was in a different literal and metaphorical arena. I made it through the process unscathed, however, in hindsight I could have definitely benefitted from some wise words from a Swiftie. Success nonetheless, I had procured tickets for me, Calvin, Silas and my niece Eloise. As luck would have it my friend Joel and his son/tight-homie-of-calvin's would also be attending the show which was to be at the Oakland Arena.
Un-pin in Kanye…
So the only other concert that I’ve seen in the Oakland Arena was Kanye West. The aforementioned Joel had gotten tickets and was looking for a concert buddy. I was a bit apprehensive but I knew I did not want to pass up this opportunity. I am not going to defend anything but I would like to make a few things clear.
- As someone who’d followed Kanye’s career closely and regularly championed him as an artist I was nervous and hesitant about this outing. I know I already kind of said this but I'd like to underline it.
- This was on the Saint Pablo tour which was in support of The Life Of Pablo album. I strongly disliked my initial interaction with that album and continued to be conflicted with it. That said, I certainly listened to it a bunch at the time.
- This show happened on October 22nd 2016 and it wasn’t until November 19th 2016 that Kanye played for 30 minutes and then ended the show early after a well publicized rant.
My Kanye show experience was fantastic. My buddy Joel and I had an incredible day of playing disc golf on two courses, going out to an incredible dinner and then hopping on BART to head to the Oakland Arena. There was apprehension the whole time in terms of wondering if the show would even happen, but things seemed to go off without a hitch. My only complaint was that the merch lines were insanely long. Upon reflection I am eternally grateful that I do not own a piece of Kanye merch. (Oh… pin in merch lines)
So when planning our approach the Oakland Arena Joel and I decided to leverage the-old-kanye plan which meant getting food and then hitting up the Fremont BART station. Turns out that not only was this Eloise’s first concert but it turned out it was also her first time on BART!
BART worked flawlessly and we're able to cruise through the security/ticket zone with ease. We’re inside now and we’re all together. I’m parenting/uncle-ing pretty decently. Joel and Owen were sitting more or less in the same area but in a different section so we start heading to where our seats might be… but not before we get this great picture.
Un-pin in merch lines...
Well. The upshot is that merch lines at shows like this are huge. You may remember our two trips through the merch line when we saw Ghost and as I mentioned above the line at Kanye was bonkers. Well… the lines here were bonkers too. Possibly the most bonkers? I knew the kids definitely wanted merch but I also definitely wanted to find our seats and establish a home base. After wandering around a bit and finding a staircase we finally started seeing section numbers that were close to ours. We found our zone and I was able to sit down and take this picture of openers Paris Texas to let the other parents of these children that we were there and thriving.
So I take this picture and am enjoying the scene… however, in the back of my head I know what I need to do next. In between songs I turn to the kids and ask “did you want me to go stand in line for merch” which was met with an enthusiastic “yes”. I was on the fence about leaving them but the scene was very chill. I tell them I’ll keep in touch with them.
I’ll let y’all do the math on the timestamps there to see how long I was in line for. My only major complaint was that there were monitors ALL OVER the area where the line was and none of them were broadcasting what was going on inside. So I ended up seeing 1.5 songs of Paris Texas and 2.5 songs of Little Yachty…
but you know what?
I got back to our seats with everyone’s first or second merch choice and settled in for the main show.
Was the show great? Yes.
Were the kids stoked? Yes.
Am I dad/uncle of the year? Unquestionably.
Here are some visuals...
He did this really cool thing where he had a record player
and would start sets of songs from an album by changing the record.
"i liked the stage setup and the way he made it feel
like we were just watching him dance around in his living room and eat a donut"
- Eloise
"I really liked how he played that guy and loved how he played
from different albums with the record player"
- Silas
"I loved that guy as a surprise song
and switching through the records was amazing"
- Calvin
When he played EARFQUAKE.
Sign on up!