Machine Gun Kelly performed for a packed venue and lively crowd at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium on Friday evening.
“He was very enthusiastic,” said Winsome Chunnu-Brayda, adviser for the Black Student Cultural Programming Board, which organized the event. “The students were excited to see him.”
Chunnu-Brayda said the board polled Ohio University students to find out which artist the students wanted to perform at their annual Halloween concert.
Pusha T, a rapper from New York who is signed to Kanye West’s label GOOD Music, opened the show with West’s song “Runaway.”
MGK opened with his song “Cleveland” to a jumping, screaming crowd. During his performance, he ran around the stage and into the crowd, jumped onto speakers that were set up on the stage and made comments to the audience about his genitalia.
Midway through the performance, he invited a group of girls from the audience to climb onto the stage to “check that (his genitalia) works.” During the stint, several girls surrounded him and kissed him while he was lying on the stage.
For his last song, he invited the entire crowd to join him on stage for his lead single “Wild Boy,” from his debut album Lace Up. A crowd of at least 100 people accepted his invitation and filled the stage.
“That’s the kind of high-energy things I like to see at a show,” said Francis Hendricks, a freshman studying journalism. “Getting really into the music, getting really excited, it showed a closeness with his audience that he wanted them up there.”
Hendricks added that she knew of MGK’s reputation for getting banned at certain venues as a result of his shows becoming too wild.“I’m the king of rowdy,” MGK said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a seated auditorium; we’ll overcome that.”
Bobby Levine, a freshman studying sport management who attended the concert with a group of friends, said he enjoyed MGK’s performance.
“It was one of the top three shows I’ve ever been to,” Levine said. “He really used the crowd to amp everyone up, and he did a great job of that.”
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