The famous and loved “I Fall Apart” singer, Austin Richard Post, professionally known as Post Malone, is recognized for his beautifully blended songs containing pieces of hip-hop, pop, R&B and trap genres all in one. Post Malone performed with support from the popular indie rock band Beach Fossils on Monday, July 17th at Darien Lake Amphitheater in the center of Darien, NY.
There were hours of tailgating down Allegany Road with cars completely full of adrenaline filled teenagers, and older adults getting so excited that they started screaming lyrics from Post Malone’s songs out of their car windows after about an hour passed. After the two hour mark of being bumper to bumper hit, you are finally able to see the parking lot which is filled with people playing cup pong out of the back of their pickup trucks with subwoofers thumping the lot grounds. Shortly after, doors were officially opened, the line to get in the venue started filling up, extremely fast, faster than I had ever seen before.
As it hit an hour before the show started, the entirety of the amphitheater was packed with no place to sit, or even stand for that matter. The majority of the crowd was girls in short-shorts and sparkly tank-tops, and their boyfriends following them along like lost puppies. The rest were widely different, older men, moms and their daughters, dads with their young songs, and big groups of older women who were clearly big partiers in high school. Outside of the amphitheater was everything else, chaos, random couples arguing, drunk people stumbling over their own feet. The merch line towards the gate filled up fast, and the lawn section of the venue was no longer green; it was filled with individuals who have been waiting for this moment for months, if not years.
As the anticipation throughout the venue increasingly filled, the pre-show tunes turned off and Beach Fossils were officially on stage. The crowd was screaming, roaring with excitement, and it was sure that they were going to struggle to speak normally the next day.
As the sun set beautifully, Post Malone went on about an hour or so later, the audience increasingly got bigger to a point where there was no room to move your feet. The crowd had 19,000+ people and started to look like Lollapalooza (QRO photos of Post Malone at Lollapalooza ’18). The VIP section was completely full with people crying as they saw Post Malone on stage, some for the first time, others maybe their 100th time. The crowd roared even louder than before to a point where everyone’s ears were probably hurting from the horrid volume of this screaming.
About halfway through the set, his songs got heavier and fireworks, fire, and sparklers started going off on stage, red strobes were flickering.
In his break between songs, he would drink up full red solo cups full of alcohol and would throw the remainder of the liquid into the crowd. Everyone towards the front of the stage screamed from excitement of trying to catch his cup.
As the set went along, songs got slower and the crowd’s flashlights went on and swayed throughout the crowd. You could start to hear the voices of fans louder than Post Malone. There was passion, emotion, heartbreak in the voices of the fans and you could tell just by listening to it. Post Malone took more breaks and threw his guitar picks into the crowd and told personal stories, thoughts, and told the crowd they were beautiful throughout the rest of the night.
His set ended and people started flooding out to get to their cars and by the time a lot of people left, there were still some screaming throughout the crowd, “One more song, one more song” and so Post Malone went back on stage and sang two more of his popular pieces to the audience and afterwards, the concert was officially over. The sky was black and the parking lot was filled with stuck cars upwards of three and a half hours after the concert ended, people jumping cars that died, people dancing on the roofs of their cars, others angry and laying on the horns. Nobody’s car moved and it was clear nobody was getting home ‘til at least two o’clock in the morning. But Post Malone’s fans didn’t care, this was probably one of the best and most memorable nights of their life and it was clear.
