bring the energy

Last night was a late night for Roman, two of his friends, and me. I took them to see 21 Savage in concert, which ended up being a great concert—I didn’t anticipate his show being so good, and the show exhibited the impact of an individual’s energy.

Let’s start with the high level of energy:

Between the second act, JID (who I was most excited to see), and his set, 21 Savage’s DJ took the stage and took the crowd's energy to an entirely new level. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a club, but as he played song after song and worked the crowd, the entire amphitheater became a giant nightclub. I didn’t anticipate hearing a Miley Cyrus song at a 21 Savage concert, but when the DJ played “Party in the USA”, everyone lost it. By the end of the DJ’s set, people were standing on their seats, bobbing their heads and screaming the words to the song; he was beyond successful in getting the crowd ready for 21 to come out.

This brings me to a sidenote on how unifying music is. In my little section, I was surrounded by people of every race, gender, orientation, and age you could imagine, and there was not a single issue. Everyone was singing and dancing together without a care in the world. Music really is special.

The DJ did a great job bringing his energy to the stage, which allowed him to engage the audience and elevate their energy. He also had a great set of songs that everyone would know and get excited to hear and sing—the setlist was perfect for his mission. An important and underappreciated thing they did was 21 Savage came out almost immediately after the last song in the DJ’s set; I’ve been at a concert where there was almost an hour between the DJ and the main act–killed the energy.

21 Savage came out with a level of energy that made me believe he was excited to be there and enjoyed the opportunity to do what he loves. He matched and raised the energy that his DJ set and the crowd was dancing and singing the last song louder than the first. You can tell I was impressed with 21 Savage and his DJ’s performance, and yes he played a great setlist, but the energy they brought to the stage is what made the performance memorable and so good.

I’ve been at concerts where it seemed like the artists on stage didn’t want to be there and the crowd's energy matched them—those shows weren’t great but had every opportunity to be like last night’s concert.

And it could have gone that way…

The first act, a young up-and-coming artist, brought absolutely no energy to the stage.

Roman said to me it seemed like he was trying to be too cool, which I agreed with. He even came back out to perform a song with 21 Savage and still brought his low level of energy to the stage—thankfully, 21 drowned out his low energy and kept things going.

His energy was so low I was actually annoyed. As someone who would LOVE to be on a stage with an amphitheater full of energy there to see me, I couldn’t imagine getting on stage and just going through the motions–I still can’t, which has me annoyed again as I’m writing this and thinking about his performance. I felt bad for the second act, JID, because he felt the consequence of the low energy set by the artist before him—he did a great job of giving the crowd CPR and reviving it for the DJ and 21 Savage.

I didn’t anticipate last night’s concert becoming a Daily Note, but the reminder of the importance of bringing energy to everything you do could not be missed. Yes, there were other differences between the artists, but at the end of the day, the first act could have had a memorable performance for a “positive” reason if he had just brought some energy to the stage.

Always. Bring. The. Energy.

See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC