As I type this, it’s been fifteen hours since I saw my absolute favorite celebrity: Austin Richard Post. My head is still swimming with shock and my throat is still raw from scream singing. I have developed a deep love for Post Malone over the course of two years. I had liked his music before then but it didn’t start to reach this obsessive level until it became 2018. There’s probably a few reasons for why it happened around that time which pertains to my personal life that I won’t get into here since this is a happy piece.
My friends and my mom knows of my love for Post Malone. He is my lock screen and home screen on my phone so I look at him every day. There is a slideshow of images that run through my desktop monitors. I have scooped up his t-shirts from the mall despite being too large. I’ve worn his hoodie nearly every day for months. Maybe I have an additive personality where I can’t like things in a normal, healthy way but I digress.
My best friend decided to buy us tickets as a Christmas/very early birthday gift. We had met through work and our first time hanging out outside of work was to see a concert at The Masquerade. Since we have been friends for nearly two years, this was also a sort of Friendaversary celebration. We drove from our college campus to Duluth just to skip out on the online service fees and got two Post Malone tickets. We didn’t get floor tickets but we did have a really good view. I spent months counting down the days until the concert finally happened.
I’m still pretty surprised that the concert was in the Infinite Energy Arena in Duluth. I had always assumed he would stick to Atlanta since he’s such a huge musician right now but it was nice not having to brave the major city traffic. The concert didn’t start until 8 pm but we got there a little after 7 pm. We beat the traffic and got a great parking spot. We had more than enough time to explore the arena and buy merchandise from one of the many stands. The arena is really big and accommodated all of the participants. There were many different merchandise stands to choose from, countless drink stalls, and photo booths outside. Every bag was checked and every participant had to walk through a metal detector, which made me feel super safe.
My best friend and I were in section 103 and has aisle seats, which allowed me to dance to my hearts content. Most people around us didn’t really care for Tyler Yaweh or Swae Lee, which were the opening acts. My best friend is completely clueless on music that isn’t alt rock, early 2000’s emo, or metal so she was really out of her element there. I was just anxiously waiting for Post to come on stage. It didn’t take too long for the entire area to become hazy from the stage’s fog machine and from people who had sneakily brought marijuana in. It got a bit stuffy for a while but it quickly cleared up once the lights went down for the final time and Post Malone made his grand entrance.
For whatever reason, I didn’t think I was going to cry at this concert even though I sobbed my teenage heart out for Coldplay. Sure enough, as soon as the lights hit him I was sobbing and trembling. Many years of disappearing from the world around me so I could get sucked into his albums had finally reached a peak. I was given the honor of being in Post Malone’s top 2% of fans on Spotify only two days prior to this concert (which is a meaningless title that makes me more proud than I would like to admit). Years of obsessing and adoring came to this one pivotal moment where I saw him live and my best friend took a one minute video of me crying over him which I refuse to share.
I had Googled for a list of songs that he would sing at the concert and actually found a list. He stuck to that list the entire concert and it helped me to see how much longer the concert would go on and which songs were next. He started with Hollywood’s Bleeding which is one of my favorite songs by him so I was just half crying and half scream singing right from the start. Next was Better Now, another favorite. Then Saint-Tropez and Goodbyes without Young Thug (thankfully). He sang Die For Me, Allergic, Candy Paint, Psycho, Enemies, Wow, and Paranoid before allowing us to take a breather with one of his slower songs, I Fall Apart. I Fall Apart was actually the first song I had really ever heard from him and I was enamored by his voice right then and there.
He then shifted back to Over Now and Take What You Want which actually featured a ton of fire and indoor fireworks that were on beat. Then he got really slow by bringing out an acoustic guitar to sing and play Stay, which is one of his songs that has a lot of sentimental meaning for me. Next he play Circles which is a song that both my mom and my best friend’s mom love. Go Flex came after and that pushed me to tears again. It might seem weird to think of someone crying over Go Flex but it’s the song I had memorized and played too many times on my ukulele and it also means a lot to me. He ended his concert with White Iverson, Sunflower, rockstar, and Congratulations.
Post Malone’s music has meant a great deal to me for a very long time now but seeing him live gave his songs a whole new meaning for me. It was like unlocking the last piece of a puzzle. Everything made sense in that moment and it solidified why I love Post Malone so incredibly much. He is a fantastic artist with an extremely humble demeanor. He is uplifting, charismatic, and genuinely very wholesome. My best friend, who had never really heard a Post Malone song in its entirety, even had a blast because of the vibe he gave off.
I will be the first to admit that Post Malone tickets, even nosebleed seats, are far from cheap. His merchandise is also far from cheap. However, if you consider yourself a fan, I would highly recommend seeing him live at least once. There’s such a powerful energy in the place he inhabits and is extremely uplifting. I don’t like comparing a lot of things to the night I saw Coldplay live but this concert experience is definitely right up there with Coldplay. It was honestly one of the best nights of my life and this venue was great for it. All of the workers were on top of their jobs and helped everything go smoothly from start to finish. We were able to get out of the parking lot in under 15 minutes because of these workers. Everyone was so kind and accommodating and made this concert experience ten times better than I thought it could be. This wouldn’t have been possible without my best friend and I cannot begin to express how eternally grateful I am for this concert. It was absolutely worth destroying my vocal chords for and losing my ability to speak today.
A photo I took at the concert that I edited. 
A photo I took at the concert that I edited. 
A photo I took at the concert that I edited. 
A photo I took at the concert that I edited.
Ink and Crystals 