Last night I had the chance to go check out Lupe Fiasco’s Generation Lasers Tour on its stop through Raleigh at the Amphitheater downtown. It was an interesting evening.

First off, the Raleigh Ampitheater should take a serious look at their will call process. I had zero delay in picking up my passes, but as for everyone else, well. The line was like 200+ deep and down the street (I might be exaggerating with that 200+ because I didn’t count) but it was super long and moving extremely slow. I stopped to have a look in the will call area and it appeared to be a case of mild chaos going on in there. The staff seemed friendly enough while handling business, but they appeared a little flustered.

Consequently, in speaking with some peers later that evening, this mild chaos is typical for the Raleigh Ampitheater’s will call process. Sounds like they might need to review how things work there.

Anyway, if you haven’t received the news, Lupe Fiasco is all the way pop now. OK maybe not 100% but close enough that it’s safe to say the sound of his music has definitely changed. And with that fact, the vibe of the evening had more of a Justin Bieber/Scotty McCleary concert vibe versus a Young Jeezy/Big K.R.I.T. concert vibe. I’m all for Lupe making money how he needs to in order to survive, just not feeling the pop vibe of Lasers, which describes the energy of the Generation Lasers tour I experienced.

The opener for the night was Young Marqus,

"Changing The Game"–Young Marqus Ft. Ava

a kid out of Houston, Texas. From what I heard, Lupe handpicked Young Marqus to be the opener for the entire Generation Lasers tour. Since he’s 11 years old and co-signed by one of my favorite rappers (pop offerings and all) I was curious about Young Marqus’ music and performance. Which surprised me. The kid could actually rhyme, engaged the crowd and had a great set.

He ran through several tracks from his current mixtape, Respect Me. For "Not Gonna Give You Up", he brought out his mother, Mecole, to assist with vocals.  

Looking at the current music landscape, there’s not to many tween artists for kids to listen to (remember when Raven Symone and Bow Wow dominated the market?). Lupe Fiasco is on to something by selecting Young Marqus for the Generation Lasers tour and exposing his music to Lupe’s pop fan base. This is even more evident by last night’s turnout: there were a number of elementary school age children, teens and their parents in the audience.

Other highlights of the night:

The turnout wasn’t as great as I expected it to be. The ampitheater was about 60% full. And that’s a generous estimate. Which is interesting, considering "The Show Goes On" has gone double platinum and Groupoun offered 50% off tickets for the show.

Iyaz went on right before Lupe Fiasco. My concert partner and I both agreed that with his shades, leather jacket and slightly fitted jeans, Iyaz bore a striking similarity to Lupe.

Even though Lupe’s music is heavily popped influenced, I’m going to continue supporting it. Food & Liquor is a dope album and word is Food & Liquor 2 is on the way. Nice. 

In other news:

September 19, 2011 marks the 5th anniversary release of Food & Liquor. Lupe hosted a web chat earlier today to celebrate it’s release and if you missed it, you can watch it here.