Rolling Loud Portugal: who Lil last is the best
“Summertime, festival season”, announces Lil Baby on the last day of the first edition of Rolling Loud this side of the Atlantic, after “Mo Bamba”, the great theme of Seck Wes – who had played on the Punx Stage an hour before –, will serve entrance to the Atlanta, Georgia rapper’s concert. The bright orange of the outfit, from the trunk to the boots, allows you to follow the artist’s every step, even at night and far away from the Loud Stage. The North American trapper starts acting out of phase with the originals that play from behind, a sculptural flaw at first — really, it’s not easy for Lil Baby to keep up with Lil Baby. But there he takes his own train and goes at cruising speed for a safe and consistent performance.
“Doing all these shows, I’m on the road” — and it shows. The dynamics of the verses of “Drip Too Hard sung a cappella in chorus with the audience”, or of the chorus of “Yes Indeed”, with emphasis on the keywords “keys”, “please” and “leave”, are just samples of the Lil Baby’s ability to grab the audience from start to finish. The successive bangers do not remain spectators even for a second, the same ones who are unaware of much of the repertoire of the second Lil of the night. “I’m not going to lie, I’m having fun”, he confesses halfway through the show. On this side, the sensation is equivalent; but Lil Yachty’s time is approaching and, after the unveiling of “new shit”, curiosity takes us to the secondary stage to continue following the saga of Lils.
Lil Baby’s fellow countryman is already taking care of the Punx Stage. We arrived at a brisk pace, still with one eye on the final stretch of the abandoned show; we could not, however, miss the most resonant tombs of these three days. The Michigan Boat, with headband, features absent around the painted finals, and with the colors of Portugal (boys by mere coincidence, so we believe), relies considerably more on the late tracks, while not the mouth under the nightdress.
Still, make up for your form in front of the legion of fans. The big hits on a global scale arrive to make Lil Boat come to Portugal for the first time: “iSpy” and “Broccoli are, clearly, the public’s favourites. But Lil Yachty wants to up the ante and warns “we’re going to be fucking stupid”. It is then that Trippie Redd appears by surprise, in a return to the Punx Stage – closed by himself the day before –, for both, ex-red heads, to blow “some Pop Rocks”. Ski Mask The Slump God follows on the second lap path at Praia da Rocha. The rapper from Florida last season on the main stage under the twilight, appears with the away shirt, from Futebol Clube do Porto, while his hype man wears the main one, with stripes and blues.
Blue stripe is also white, the image of those who know about the bottom bottles… The rapper asks the public to keep them in a first phase. The distribution goes on for several minutes, waiting lightened by the background soundtrack a la Super Mario. On the big screen, behind the artists, read “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”. At the end of the supply, and despite the open sky at night, as the drinking water deluge system, a few years later, the system in such a way of meteorological problems changes radically: New wait, this time without much margin. There’s no time to waste at a festival like this. It’s time to take off towards the planet of “Baby Pluto”.
Lil Uzi Vert was expected to be on a parallel voyage to the one that Playboi Carti had commanded — and on which they all seemed to embark — from the same station 24 hours earlier. And that’s exactly what happens, for better or for worse, as long as you walk in wearing sunglasses and swimming trunks (a conditioner with most festival-goers). With two horns of spiky hair and a disconcerting deadpan on his face, the “little devil” roams the stage like an angry baby.
The performance, that, is in the background. Lil Uzi Vert, presumably paid in gold, has only her presence to offer. And, like the “vampire” of the previous night, this one seems to be enough to drive an immense mass to delirium. The singer does not sing, nor does he pretend to sing. It features a brazen playback and lets the fans sing for him songs like “Sauce It Up”, “Movie”, “Do What I Want”, “That’s A Rack”, “Woke Up Like This”, or “Of Course We Ghetto ”Flowers” (with, there it is, Playboi Carti).
It is, on the other hand, focused on staring at spectators. He looks for a friend, lost in the sea of people, with whom he shares a “group conversation”. And there you find him: Caucasian character adrift on stage to the sound of “wokeuplikethis*” (theme from, guess what, Playboi Carti). “This is my friend, we talk every day – for real. We found him in the crowd,” originates Lil Uzi Vert. Pedro is the name of this affectionate friend, who thanks him for what he received in a moment, surely, unforgettable for the rest of his life.
Apparently, contrary to what he sings on “XO Tour Lif3” — the only musically interesting moment of the concert — not all of Lil Uzi Vert’s friends are dead. Much less your fans. They come to life at every mosh pit, and when the rapper asks if you want him to leave, don’t go from now. Only with “Bad and Boujee” does it happen because of the fundamentals. Happy are those who are content with so little.