Welcome Week Concert Packs Lawlor, Relieves Early Stress
Olivia Sullivan reports on audio issues, a few negative comments but an overall successful, crowd engaging performance by headliner Flo Rida.
In the past few years artists invited to perform for the semester’s opening have included ASAP Ferg, Ella Mai, Lil Yachty, and T-Pain. When it came to this year’s concert, there was lots of speculation over who it might be, most of which took place in the comment section of the Nevada ASUN Instagram account. Guessing was put to rest on August 23rd, when the account officially announced that Flo Rida would be headlining the concert.
Flo Rida, or Tramar Lacel Dillard, is an American rapper and singer best known for his 2007 single Low. Although he was born in Florida, a fact that contributed to his stage name, Flo Rida is no stranger to Nevada. The musician studied international business management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for two months before going back to the Sunshine state to ultimately pursue his music career.
Due to his popularity in the early 2000s Flo Rida continues to be a name most students attending UNR at this time know well. However, some students were unsure of how the concert would turn out.
One student in the comment section under the official post of the @nevadaasun account gained 17 likes after communicating his clear lack of excitement for the concert.
@_scrugglife : “LMAO, he still performs??? and not programming paying people to comment like they’re excited.”
Despite mixed reviews over the excitement for the headlining artist, and some annoyed comments about the $25 tickets–the Lawlor Event Center saw no shortage of students in attendance as they stood in line for over two hours before the doors opened.
The floor of the event center was filled to capacity quickly after doors opened, forcing other students to flood through the doors of the second floor to begin filling up the stadium seats. This process took quite a while however, with most people averaging about 30 minutes to an hour standing outside in line.
By the time I got inside, DJ Mozis had already begun his set, and students who had been waiting for hours were antsy to see the main act. They made this clear by continuously chanting Flo Rida’s name throughout the Dj’s set. The artist handled the chants with grace, acknowledging the crowd’s excitement and promising the eventual arrival of the headliner.
When DJ Mozis left the stage around 8:55 p.m., there was a grace period of about five minutes where the stage was empty and the chants of the crowd became deafening.
The cheering only got louder when the band and back up dancers came out on stage. Once Flo Rida was on stage the cheers had become so loud it was difficult to hear or understand what the headliner was saying when he would take breaks in between songs.
At one point the artist began to say, “You can not go to the University of Nevada–,” but the rest of the sentence went unheard by those of us sitting in the upper section besides the stage.
I can only assume he was giving some sort of speech about how hard we must work to go here, and how he understands because of his time at UNLV. Of course, that assumption is a big one, but it is one the people sitting around where I was had to make in order to try and keep up with what was happening throughout the concert.
The students on the floor, in front of the stage, seemed to make out what he was saying perfectly fine. Most of the time I just followed along with their reactions, and hoped for the best.
A group of students that was sitting behind me seemed to be doing the same thing, which they discussed with each other throughout the concert.
“I can’t understand what he’s saying, but everyone down there [on the floor] is cheering, so I’m gonna cheer too.”
This hiccup did not stop the students sitting in those sections from enjoying themselves. Kids crowded together and danced in clumps–cheering whenever Flo Rida spoke despite them not being able to fully understand what the artist was saying.
The audio problem would come and go when it came to actually performing his songs. Flo Rida and his guests had high energy and very rarely were seen not jumping around both on and off the stage. At one point, the artist brought out a bundle of roses.
“You know what, we’ve got too many roses here,” he said. “But the real problem is, so many girls in here where do I begin?”
The crowd sang along as Flo Rida spoke the lyrics from the song Where Them Girls At. Before actually beginning the song, however, he decided to invite a large group of girls to join him on stage.
One of the girls on stage was Elizabeth Guillen, a senior UNR student and member of ASUN.
“The set was a few songs in and I was at the front left side [of the stage] with the ASUN programming team and some of Flo Rida’s stage crew were standing right in front of us,” Guillen said.” They were asking us and some of the girls at the front of the crowd if we wanted to go on stage. We had no idea what we’d be doing but we all said yes and ended up dancing on stage for about three songs–it was honestly the time of my life.”
The girls truly showed no lack of enthusiasm for this gracious invitation, and immediately began dancing and following the lead of the artist singing both Where Them Girls At and his celebrated number one hit song, Low.
After the girls left the stage, many things happened in quick succession. Suddenly a crowd of students began chasing after Flo Rida as he was carried on the back of one of his crew members throughout the outskirts of the open floor. Both his departure from the stage and reentry came in such a rush that nobody seemed to really know where the artist was for the entirety of the song Club Can’t Handle Me. After he made it safely back on to the stage he quickly invited a group of boys to join him on stage.
“This bout to be a party!”
Flo Rida kept the boys on stage as he performed GDFR, another crowd favorite , as the high energy only got more intense.
Flo Rida finished his whirlwind performance with the song Wild Ones. With thunderous applause and cheers following him, Flo Rida and his band members exited the stage.
The crowd leaving the event center were only slightly more subdued than when they had entered. Students dispersed quickly and rowdily, some on the prowl for their next weekend fun.
Parker Samuelson, a senior at UNR, has gone to three Welcome Week concerts in her time at the university and believes the concert was a success.
“I think the concert helps students relax socially before the semester really starts and come together as a pack,” Samuelson said.
Some students on the anonymous app YIK YAK did not agree.
“Concert was mid…but it’s still the biggest w that’ll ever come out of Lawlor.”
Personally, I can’t say I completely agree with the negative comment left anonymously on YIK YAK. Although I can’t say it was the best Welcome Week concert I have been to in my time at UNR, it was certainly entertaining–which I believe should count for something. Audio issues aside, the concert was enjoyable for what it was. Despite the wavering opinions about the night, I don’t think anyone involved in planning it will be worrying too much about the negative comments.
