This is it. You've been waiting weeks for The Artist to make this tour stop in your city and you're sure as hell not going to miss it. Since you've never been to a rap concert before this one, you're unsure of what to expect. How many people will be there? Who's opening? You decide to grab your friends and your ticket to find out the hard way.
8:30 PM – You and your friends plan to show up at the venue early in order to secure a decent spot near the front of the stage. You manage to find cheap parking 1 mile away, opting to walk and drink simultaneously to save time.
9:15 – You arrive to find a line stretching around the block because the venue has decided not to allow people inside yet. Your group gets a spot at the back of the line behind a stoic man wearing headphones and a t-shirt from The Artist's first tour. He is unfazed by your arrival.
9:18 – A rowdy group of white kids barely old enough to be allowed inside get in line behind you and your friends. They begin to drunkenly recite the hook to The Artist's latest radio hit, mashing up the words on several occasions. In turn, your group increases their alcohol consumption level. The first bars from The Artist's biggest hit celebrate his arrival as he saunters onto the stage looking slightly more intoxicated than you.
9:35 – You are now drunk. The doors open and the line begins to creep forward.
10:00 – You get to the front of the line and give your ID to a 30-year-old man who looks like he wants you to know that he has better things to be doing on a Friday. You advance to the frisky-patdown section without any trouble, but the group of kids behind you aren't so lucky. Turns out they weren't old enough after all.
10:05 – After paying $5 for a mandatory coat check, your group is safely inside the venue. The crowd is sparse and centered around the bars as opposed to the stage. The current performer is DJ Macbook.
10:15 – Your group decides to buy shots to kill time, but you opt to wait for the first opening act to come on stage first, since you figure that it might thin the crowd swarmed around the bar.
10:30 – The opening act, a local rapper who likes to talk about his surplus of weed/girls/swag takes the stage. Your theory seems incorrect, as there are now more people huddled around the bar than ever before. The only people at the foot of the stage are surly photographers, the stoic man from earlier (still wearing headphones) and drunk white boys in snapbacks trying to capture every moment of this on their Blackberry cameras.
11:00 – With the opening act leaving the stage to polite applause, the hypeman for the event comes out to announce that The Artist has just entered the building. This is, of course, a bold-faced lie told in the hopes of attracting people to the stage. It sort of works, and your friends begin to get belligerently drunk at the bar while you're treated to another hour of DJ Macbook's Greatest Hits.
12:01 AM – After you finish building up an adequate buzz, you see that DJ Macbook is being replaced on stage by The Artist's DJ, signifying that the show will start shortly. You stumble towards the stage in hopes of getting a better view.
12:16 – The first bars from The Artist's biggest hit celebrate his arrival as he saunters onto the stage looking slightly more intoxicated than you and your friends. He “raps” every other word from the verse into the microphone while his energetic hypeman shouts the rest of the song, encouraging everyone to “put ‘em up!”
12:35 – Your advantageous position near the front of the stage proves meaningless as you are pushed and shoved deeper into the middle of the crowd with each song. You don't really mind, since The Artist has spent the last five minutes explaining to the crowd exactly how much money he has, and what he intends to do with it. The stoic man has somehow kept his position near the front, but he is alternating between yawning and checking his phone.
12:50 – Sensing that the club's curfew is about to go into effect, The Artist begins to perform the first verse from each of his songs so that he can hit his quota and get paid. You try to get a better view of the stage, but you can't see over the sea of bright cell phone screens.
1:00 – The Artist thanks everyone for coming out before spending the next ten minutes telling you about his next project and encouraging you to visit the merchandise booth on the way out. Congratulations, you have just helped The Artist spend a little more time talking about how much money he has, and a little less time rapping at his next concert.