Machine Gun Kelly at the House of Blues on October 10, 2016

Entering the crowd, the first thing Machine Gun Kelly announced to the crowd, enveloped by smoke, was that he had never been as high on the Alpha Omega tour as he was that night.

Long before the lights dimmed for the opener, Mod Sun, members of the crowd started chanting for MGK. The audience was filled with people dressed in Machine Gun Kelly merch, most commonly the signature bandanas. The peace signs held up for Mod Sun turned into L’s as the crowd got laced up.

Throughout the night three people were kicked out of the venue for crowd-surfing or getting on someone’s shoulders. Mod Sun stopped his performance for the first to yell from stage to give the man a free T-Shirt from his merch stand.

Despite having a large library to choose from for his setlist, Machine Gun Kelly started the night with his popular cover of AWOLNATION’s “Sail.” The crowd went wild and stayed that way the entire night.

Machine Gun Kelly, unlike most rappers, had a full band on stage for his performance. It was amazing to watch each member of the band get caught up in the music, rapping and dancing along to all of the artist’s music. Another entertaining sight was the rapper’s machine gun microphone stand; although, it was not used often as the rapper was constantly jumping all over the stage.

During “Til I Die,” “Wild Boy,” and “Young Man,” the audience excitement multiplied and they jumped and rapped with the singer even more than they did with the other songs, as if the rapper was hosting a giant party and everyone’s favorite song came on at once.

Although the show was labeled all ages, the concert was clearly expected to have adult audiences. Every member of MGK’s band, including the rapper himself, had their own bottle of liquor that was empty by the end of the show. Machine Gun Kelly was also smoking weed during his songs and at one point, upon learning of someone in the crowd’s birthday, he passed it to her and someone else in the audience threw him another.

USD Radio Writer:
Bria Higginbotham
Photos also by: Bria Higginbotham