Photo by: thelifelike.com
In his song “I Be On That,” Childish Gambino sings “I ain’t got to do it big, I just gotta do it different.” And different he definitely does.
Gambino, perhaps better known as Donald Glover from NBC’s “Community,” recently began his IAMDONALD tour, a unique blend of comedy, multimedia interaction and rap music under his pseudonym, Childish Gambino.
Inside Boulder’s Fox Theater, Glover, in his signature red sweatshirt and jeans, began the performance under his given name, delivering a hilarious, raunchy, stand-up set revolving mainly around observational humor and several anecdotes. While making the audience laugh, Glover made it clear from the brevity of the set and the quick transition to the musical portion of the show that Childish Gambino would be the star of the night.
The transition from stand-up to rap was a smooth one, mostly due to Glover’s clever use of a multimedia element. The video entailed Glover meeting with a future version of himself, warning the present-day Glover of the dangers his rapping would cause, including Lil Wayne releasing a comedy album and a Donald Glover produced version “The Hangover 2.” Eventually, this leads into Gambino’s grand entrance, complete with a video montage of himself running toward the stage.
Opening with “Let Me Dope You” from his album Culdesac, Gambino started strong, immediately setting a high-energy tone for the crowd.
Surprisingly, Gambino chose to use a full band, including violin, drums, guitar and even a trashcan.
Moving immediately to his most popular song, “Freaks and Geeks,” it became obvious that the crowd was well versed with Gambino’s work. The audience sang along with the lyrics, even carrying the song at some of the more memorable lines such as, “Take the ‘G’ out your waffle, all you got left is your ego.”
Gambino controlled the crowd, moving seamlessly from song to song, calming the audience into a gentle sway at some of his more somber and introspective songs, like “Got This Money” and “So Fly” (which was preformed in near flawless falsetto), and rousing them into a frenzy, inciting the crowd to jump up and down, for songs like “Lights Turned On.”
As the lights dimmed and Gambino left the stage, he was followed by fervent shouts of “Donald, Donald, Donald,” prompting an encore. The highlight of this final portion of the show was the freestyle rap Gambino laid down.
This concluded the surprising and versatile show, defining Glover not only as a successful actor and comedian, but also as a rapper and a force to be reckoned with in the future.
