Machine Gun Kelly arrived at Fortuna Sports Hall in Prague in a helicopter
The Kelly machine gun returned to the Czech Republic after five long years. During that time, he transformed from an underground rapper into a global pop-punk and Hollywood star. He brought this year’s album “Mainstream Sellout” to Prague’s Fortuna Sports Hall, which he managed to play in its entirety.
Live: Machine Gun Kelly
place: Fortuna sports hall, Prague
date: September 19, 2022
Support, support: 44Phantom, iann dior
set list: born with horns, god save me, maybe, alien concert, drunk face, fake love can’t last, drug dealer, ay!, more than life, die in california, 13th floor, paper cuts, title track, kiss, bloody valentine, roll windows, el diablo, emo girl, glass house, lonely, i think i’m fine, why are you here / jawbreaker / sid & nancy, WWIII, WW4, don’t sleep, repeat, forget me too, makeup sex, best friend my ex, twin flame
Photogallery
Prague was flooded with pink in the early evening on Monday. She rushed through the trams, subway and streets towards the Fortuna hockey hall in Holešovice. Fans of the American musician Machine Gun Kelly obviously fell in love with his current image, and there were truly countless clones around the city. Few of them were over thirty.
© Vojta Florian / musicserver.cz
The selection of pre-jumpers was connected with this. The young man Phantom44 opened the evening about ten minutes before it was announced. He acted as a passable imitation of Yungblud or the main star. He bases his work on guitars, but his rock sound resonates with pop. It wasn’t a bad performance. Twenty-three-year-old Puerto Rican singer and rapper iann dior is about something more musical, and it was evident in his performance, even though he only brought one guitarist with him as backup on stage. In addition, he already has decent hits like “Live Fast Die Numb” or “Emotions”, which the audience in the hall knew, and for a while it looked like he was already on the stage of MGK. He was very good at working with the audience for his age, and even if some of his songs felt a little lackluster, the overall impression was good, especially in the second half of the set.
Before Colson Baker’s spectacular show broke out, the audience was fired up with “Welcome to the Black Parade”. Right after that, they watched a video where the protagonist was trapped in a box in a helicopter, after which he soon stepped out of the same mock-up directly onto the stage. It was effective, although dramaturgically it wasn’t that much fun.
© Vojta Florian / musicserver.cz
But the scene was elaborated differently. Every song had something going on. Whether it was the evil moving robot on the left or the later “emo girl” bloated giant virgin with taped nipples. There was spectacular pyrotechnics (even a helicopter was shooting), a fire show, and a visualization of a whole series of smaller paintings. It was all colorful and really fun, and at least it distracted the audience from the rather lackluster singing. But Colson didn’t build his career on a constellation of octaves. Fans were ecstatic at the slightest sight, speech. It was enough for him to lie down from the props for a moment during the singing, and there would be applause, chanting or some other display of passion. The girls even screamed at the moment he asked them to Handmade. Just unconditional love.
MGK repaid them with almost thirty songs that poured one after the other. He added the new “Mainstream Sellout” almost in its entirety and nine tracks from the previous studio album “Tickets to My Downfall”. Samples from his rap beginnings from the album “Hotel Diablo” were also heard. For example, “Floor 13” worked like a great raw pacifier among the whole line of pop-punk dancers.
© Vojta Florian / musicserver.cz
The last time this native of Houston appeared here was in 2017 at the Aerodrome Festival, where Linkin Park was jumping ahead. Their frontman Chester Bennington committed suicide about a month later. It was this event that the thirty-two-year-old musician reminded the visitors of. He dedicated one song to the late singer and his wife. Probably no one could leave unsatisfied. MGK proved that he is a first class star with strong charisma especially for the young generation. He wasn’t exactly exemplary with his constant smoking, but that’s probably not what we want from a rock’n’roll star. In conclusion, it is necessary to highlight the very good sound, which is not a complete rule in the hockey arena and only underlined the pleasant feeling of the whole dinner.