The illustrious Myles Mills, better known by his stage name Skizzy Mars, turnt up a rather small crowd in the Turner Hall Ballroom on Wednesday Oct. 17th. Doors opened at around 7 p.m. and the show started at 7:30 p.m., starting with his openers Zaia and Yoshi Flower.
Walking into the dimly lit ballroom the first thing you notice isn’t the puke green stage lights (that result in terrible pictures), the sound control center in the literal middle of the room or the energy that the crowd is emitting. You notice the lack thereof, actually. The room was quite empty, making it easy to just budge my way up to the front of the stage. Even after the openers finished and Skiz came on, the room still wasn’t as full as you’d imagine it to be.
Skizzy is sitting at well over a million monthly listeners on Spotify, but judging from the number of people you’d assume way less. The energy from the crowd wasn’t as electric as you’d have hoped for. Being a huge Skizzy Mars fan, I was ecstatic to be able to cover his show, but it didn’t seem like many others had the same enthusiasm. (Although they probably were just looking for an excuse to go out and drink on a Wednesday night with some friends.)
His openers Zaia and Yoshi Flower worked with the crowd that came and performed some out of the ordinary acts that you wouldn’t expect from a typical hip-hop show. Both were very skillful on the electric guitar but lacked other elements of a live performance that would later be filled by Skizzy’s set.
Zaia presented a more indie rock type of vibe from his music and performance that left something a little more to be desired. Meanwhile, Yoshi Flower performed a mixture of trap/hip-hop/rock songs that even stretched to cover what sounded like an old Lana Del Rey song. Being slightly bizarre and strange, the opening acts were as good as you could assume.
Both opening sets lasting around 30 minutes, and in between them, a long break from the other acts filled with regular house party music along the likes of Young Thug, Gunna, Rae Sremmurd and Shoreline Mafia. (Which, I could’ve played in my dorm room instead of paying for this $28 ticket (plus tax) for a live show.)
After what seemed like a long wait, Skiz finally came on opening with some of his older songs like “Alcoholics,” “Do You There” and “No Advice” which really pumped the crowd up. He slowly started playing more of his songs from his new album such as “Calabasses,” “Trippy,” “Waist Deep” and a crowd favorite “…”
His set design for the night was fantastic, the lights were great and the major backdrop. They were huge letter light signs that spelled out his name and would shine in tune with the songs being played. Alongside him was his drummer and guitar player that absolutely stole the show. At some points where there was an extended drum solo or guitar riff.
He quickly hyped everyone up and decided to close it out with some mellow vibes by playing his more popular songs “Girl on a Train,” and one of my personal favorites “2006.” After closing his set around 10 p.m., the crowd stuck around and wanted an encore.
“SKIZZY!” “SKIZZY!” “SKIZZY!” the crowd chanted in unison and sure enough his guitar and drum players walked out and to perform a couple more tracks. Skizzy walked out while “No Advice” played for a second time and jumped around the stage letting the crowd sing most of the lines.
Getting more somber afterward playing “Skiz Again” and songs alike to make sure we remembered the night for a while. After the encore ended, we quickly took the stairs down to leave the second floor ballroom, passing the bar that I hadn’t realized was positioned right below us.