Post Malone
15th January 2018
Trusts Arena, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Kate Taylor. Photography by Daniel Lee.
Texas native Austin Richard Post or Post Malone to you, jetted into Auckland on the last date of his Stoney World Tour to bring his unique meld of trap beat hip hop, slow rock and smoked out country vibes to Waitakere’s Trusts Stadium for one night only on a balmy summer’s eve. With an immaculate atmosphere cultivated by the superb venue staff and tour team creating a safe space with an excellently lit outdoor bar and stacks of food options on offer; rocking up to Trusts for my assignment felt more like arriving to a festival, than just a solo artist’s gig; and even better the sold out gig capacity inside was enough that it felt like a significant gathering but didn’t prevent getting a good dance on or having enough room to breathe and enjoy Posty’s show – nice work event team!
I crept in just on the last track of Swidt’s set and with their finale mash up of Scribe’s “How Many” the nicely bubbling crowd was lapping it up; bringing their hype for Posty it looks like Swidt had a great set and definitely whipped up the frenzy, just as they should. An anxiously anticipatory crowd vibed and yelled the rhymes to Big Shaq’s Man’s Not Hot which was…honestly remarkable. Then without much ceremony Posty’s hype man was out there getting us ready then boom; the unassuming, beyond friendly figure of Post Malone wandered onto stage clearly relaxing into his final tour date and injecting the venue with a big dose of chill thanks to his demeanour. “It’s about to get strange up in here! You’re all fucking wild man, Jesus Christ!” Posty yells out to the crowd.
So beloved is Posty by this crowd (and me too!) that his slightest gesture brings a roar of approval from the collected, swaying and bopping. The lighting of a cigarette – iconic. A scratch of his Posty styled mullet-ed head – near religious devotion. Through his social media presence we feel like we know him; and therefore, his penchant for things like “doing a shoey” which is lustily demanded from Posty here too in Auckland; so as a punter hurls his shoe towards stage and Posty collapses into a bit of a giggle, he obliging picks it up and skulls a beer warmed by the foot of some kid whose recently vacated this shoe and tells the crowd “I’m real happy this is my last one on the last stop of the tour. Do you guys sing the same song? Is there a special shoey song? Fuck it, I’ll just do it, here’s a shoey in Auckland…”. Despite his imbibed appearance, when Posty leans into it, throwing his head back as he leans on the mic stand, more in the stature of a rock god; Posty nails it, every note is perfection, each quiver in his cries is delicious.
For the duration of the show Post Malone had a lot of concern for the crowd members up front as the crush and heat had him worried fans couldn’t get free from the surge, “Ya’ll stop moving and pushing each other, people are getting smooshed underneath. I just wanna make sure that nobody gets hurt. It’s a shitty fucking world out there, but we wanna make just this one safe place”. So concerned was Posty that as he was about to launch into No Option, he pointed out a girl in the crowd that needed assistance and when security didn’t spot who he was indicating quick enough, he hopped down off stage and started to haul her out himself…showing that with this incredible surge of actual overnight success, Post Malone is still more like one of us, than some unobtainable hip hop icon.
Gliding through his set effortlessly and superbly Posty dedicates Fall Apart to “the stupid bitch that broke my heart” and conversely Deja Vu (his Beiber collab) goes out to “…all the beautiful New Zealand girls out there”. On Up There Posty gets into his new era Sinatra crooner style which is irresistible. Asking “Auckland ya’ll don’t mind if I play some fucking guitar for you man?” Posty launches into Feeling Whitney, seated with a guitar in hand as he goes to his most country and folk place and the whole venue comes in on the chorus in accapella. As Posty finishes up he hands ciggies out to the crowd like some sort of lolly scramble before giving us the goods; “This is my first number 1 hit and it’s all thanks to ya’ll…rest in peace to Malcolm, rest in peace to Bon Scott” and Posty launches into Rockstar which is massive and closed by Posty indulging in a bit of iconic instrument destruction.
Inside of the ruse of an encore, Posty instead tells us a story…
“When I first starting making music I was 12 years old and I started to teach myself to play and I was shit; and I still am shit, but um, I started getting older and I started getting into rap with some of my older peeps and I made my first mix tape, and I played it to everyone at the school cause I was in high school and there was my core group of friends that actually fucked with it and then there was everyone else that wanted to laugh at me and put me down and tried to tell me that I wouldn’t be in fucking New Zealand playing a big ass show. You know and even then, I moved out to L.A. I was 18, I didn’t even have a dollar to my name and I used to go through my friend’s cars to find change to buy cigarettes and shit and I made White Iverson and it changed my life overnight. But even then man, there are people that wanna put me down, laugh at me, call me a culture vulture and tell me I’d never be in New Zealand playing a big ass show; said that we would never have a number one hit in the whole fucking world; and I tell you what man, I still see those same Motherfuckers and they always say Congratu-fucking-lations, man. So I guess this is me, telling you all to live your life, do whatever the fuck you wanna do, don’t ever let anybody tell you shit cause you’re the fucking shit! This is my last song of the whole tour let’s make this bitch liiit!”
Leaving us on a perfect rendition on Congratulations; it was an absolute pleasure to see Post Malone at the beginning of his exciting career and his second ever visit to NZ; as he lives in the only way he knows, as the product of a pop culture obsessed world, as Posty sings his songs and makes the best sense of all his influences. I can’t wait to see Post Malone bring his “it factor” back to our shores ASAP!
Were you there at Trusts Arena for this packed out gig? Or have you seen Post Malone perform live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Setlist:
- Too Young
- Go Flex
- Fall Apart
- (No Option)
- Up There
- Deja Vu
- Feeling Whitney
- Big Lie
- Candy Paint
- Money Made Me Do It
- Rockstar
- White Iverson
- Congratulations
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