The Preamble:

After listening to Cudi’s mixtapes and his first album I was convinced he was possibly the best rapper of our generation. A new voice in hip hop that would break from the restricting conventions of the genre. Man On The Moon stands strong as the album of the year for me. I was seriously excited to see him live.

Pre-Cudi:

Canadian boys, Keys N Krates opened the show up. They were a pleasant surprise and managed to get the crowd enthused and on their side early on in their set. The three tore through a super fast paced set on keyboard, turntables and drums. The crowd went wild as they mixed in Hov’s Public Service Announcement, A Milli and some Fugees. I was glad to see some Canadian talent giving us one more reason to love Toronto.

After Key N Krates went off, the crowd started to get antsy as time passed with no sign of Cudi on the scene. After the hour mark, the once polite people started a unison boooooo. I made a bet as we waited that Cudi would apologize for keeping the fans waiting.

The Heartache:

Kid Cudi came out onto the dark stage with some shredding intro guitar, 30 seconds later, the music cut out, take two. Shredding guitar transitioned to Already Home and Cudi spit his verse off The Blueprint 3. A couple of songs in, a few things became apparent and it was not a pleasant revelation.

Cudi, who did have spastic spurts of energy, didn’t care too much to be understood, feedback screeched over the speakers every time he went to either side of the stage and his banter in-between songs was short of inspirational. After his opening track, Cudi demanded liquor over the microphone. The laughter of the loyal fans dissipated as they waited for Cudi who “won’t do this show unless I’m drunk” waited for Plain Pat to mix him a Greygoose + Redbull for about five minutes. His arguably perfect tracks were cut up as he “yaaaa”ed over them and yelled “who got weed?!” over a few choruses. It seemed so indicative of the show’s vibe when Cudi turned his back on his fans to rap to a cameraman on stage. “We’re filming a documentary”. I felt personally offended.

Two times during the show, he stopped a track when his DJ and him weren’t quite in sync. Both times, he got the crowd to boo the DJ and then reconcile. It was short of professional.

I lost the bet. Cudi did not apologize for making the fans wait.

The Redeemer:

There were definitely high points in the set as well. Especially good tracks included Soundtrack 2 My Life, Man On the Moon, Pursuit of Happiness and an upcoming track which Cudi performed acapella.

Halfway through his set, the lights went out and Cudi said he had a friend he wanted to introduce the crowd to. Given the casual nature of the whole show, I thought of how disinteresting it would be to meet one of Cudi’s friends during a concert. The lights came on to reveal Toronto’s own Drake. Yay! I had flashback’s to his guest appearance at the Jay-Z concert in Toronto, as he bounced onto center stage. Drake repped Toronto hard, dominated his verse from Forever and hyped Cudi during Make Her Say. It seemed like a historic moment, or at least blog worthy.