“I LOVE CHICAGO!”
These words were shouted by Yung Gravy after performing the first song for his set amid the flashing lights and smoke in Radius Chicago on Oct. 10, standing on the stage in a decorated white suit, cowboy hat and silk shirt — and a chunky MILF belt to top it off.
The presentation and performance of the Chicago stop on his tour were entertaining, and the visuals were amusing, yet even with Yung Gravy’s great stage presence and entertaining opening act Carter Vail the concert’s output was chaotic, lackluster and needed work with songs that don’t effectively translate from TikTok to a live performance.
The concert opened with DJ Tiiiiiiiiiip, a long-haired man in a cowboy hat who set the mood for the night: light-hearted and fun. From throwing packaged pastries into the crowd to saying “I can’t play copyrighted music” and thus playing Kahoot theme and elevator music for his first 15 minutes onstage while projecting a PowerPoint filled with Chicago jokes and concert “rules,” DJ Tiiiiiiiiiip was a highlight of the night.
Then came the 30-minute set from Carter Vail, another standout. From happy indie rock bops to breakup songs, this short set solidified them as a group to pay attention to. I listened to their recorded songs after the concert, and I believe they sound much better live than in the studio.
Then DJ Tip came back out, made some more jokes and played hit songs like “Hot to Go!” by Chappell Roan, “Fein!” by Travis Scott and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. After that, DJ Tiiiiiiiiiip put on “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus to usher out the main act: Yung Gravy.
Aside from the three songs that I knew from scrolling on TikTok, Yung Gravy’s set featured all new music for me. So I was quite shocked by the overly explicit songs — some of which were unnecessarily so. Then came the “never before seen short film” by Yung Gravy himself — which, at its core, was just a video of very sparsely clothed people. Aside from the content of the performance, for most of his set, Yung Gravy’s pitch modulated from too-loud-to-understand to him mumbling into the mic, nearly incomprehensible.
Maybe with some more practice and time spent with a crowd, Yung Gravy would give a better performance than his two openers, and maybe with more lyricism and less shock factor, his music would shine and his talent could be seen while he performs. But without it, Yung Gravy fell short on skill level, even with a fun environment.
