Photo courtesy of the artist
What Summerfest’s most ardent fans never seem to admit, and what its detractors need to accept if they want to get any fun out of it, is that the Big Gig is only kind of about music. Music is a central component, sure, but it mostly functions as background to 11 days of greasy food and socially sanctioned booziness. And that’s fine, really—by now Milwaukeeans should approach Summerfest with the attitude that it is what it is, for better or worse, but it also means that if you’re going with the best musical experiences in mind, it pays to pick your battles. Normally rapper Lupe Fiasco would be worth checking out, sure to be solid if not exactly spectacular, but with the fest extra hectic on account of the weekend holiday, that wasn’t really enough.
It wasn’t that the crowd around the Miller Lite Oasis was incredibly large or anything, it was just typically packed, but it’s hard to recall another show where so many people turned up only to seem so indifferent toward the very thing they came to see. It’s strange to watch people jockeying for a position closer to the stage and then not even looking at it, but downright obnoxious when you have to strain to hear over the din of adolescent chatter and inebriated shouting, mixed with the occasional tussle. The audience periodically got a little more engaged, like during the chant-along chorus of “Kick, Push” or when the guitar player aroused some patriotism with a Jimi Hendrix-style “Star-Spangled Banner” solo, but for many Fiasco’s presence seemed oddly secondary, as if a recording would’ve sufficed.
It’d be unfair to call it bad. The socially conscious yet pop-savvy MC delivered a decent set and there were people there who appreciated it, but given the distracting circumstances it still felt somewhat pointless. Toward the end something did seem to give way in the audience; perhaps the less invested left to sample another stage or the teenagers’ collective parents were there to pick them up, but Fiasco was able to get in a few songs, such as “Next to It” and the mellow “Daydreamin’,” with a bit more energy coming back his way. They came off far better for it, but it proved to be too little too late. Another day it might’ve been different, but here the music was all but blotted out by the more annoying aspects of Summerfest.
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