Wiz Khalifa is pictured here during the Third Annual Under The Influence Of Music tour in New Jersey. (Photo Credit: Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images)
Most performers who play big venues pay a little bit of lip service to those in the cheap seats during the show. Maybe they ask those way in the back to make some noise or they acknowledge a time when they were in the cheap seats themselves as fans. But during his performance at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield on Saturday night, Wiz Khalifa actually went all the way out to the lawn area to rap for those in the cheap seats.
He referenced singing back there to what he said was his starting point in life. He said he needed to “give the back some love.”
His gesture was appreciated, but even if he didn’t go that extra mile for the audience, his fans probably wouldn’t have cared. The fact that he did though speaks volumes about the dedication of a rapper who would spit rhymes like “Work Hard, Play Hard.”
For the crowd, the Under the Influence of Music tour is definitely about the party, and during his main set no song summed up this attitude better than “Young Wild and Free,” the main hook of which is “So what, we get drunk? So what, we smoke weed? We’re just having fun. We don’t care who sees.”
However, there is more substance to the Under the Influence tour than a line like that or the constant clouds of weed smoke hovering in the air would lead an outsider to believe.
Even as black and yellow confetti fought for air space with the pot smoke, (during “Black and Yellow,” his 2011 breakout hit, obviously) it was clear that Khalifa and his supporting acts were all about following dreams. During the show Wiz took off his shirt to show off his tatted up body and skinny self. At the bottom of his neck is the word “Faith” in cursive ink and on either side of his chest is the split insignia “Win some, lose some.” Khalifa was not the only one promoting this message.
Earlier in the evening, Young Jeezy told the crowd, “If your dreams don’t scare you, you ain’t dreaming big enough.”
Throughout the night the people on stage celebrated the spoils of what following your dreams can lead to, throwing souvenirs such as T-shirts, hats, bracelets, towels, and at some points of the concert Jeezy was even throwing money into the crowd.
Khalifa brought fans up onto the stage, jumped into the crowd several times to crowd surf, sprayed water into the crowd and basically did everything he could to connect with his audience, also mentioning how much he loves being on tour, but that he misses his one-year-old son. It’s not always just about the party.
