‘‘AT least Flo didn’t show up,’’ said a disgruntled fan leaving Childish Gambino’s baffling show at The Cambridge on Thursday night.
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He’d begun the night gruntled, with good reason to be. Unlike Flo Rida, the gold-chained empty vessel who stiffed Newcastle fans in 2011 with a festival no-show, Childish Gambino (real name Donald Glover) is a talented, clever guy.
Dark, writerly rapping aside, Glover was a writer on 30 Rock, a comedy that dared to be all kinds of things and mostly was. He’s a protege of Tina Fey. She raps on one of his albums.
He’s probably best known as Troy in the cult sitcom Community, where he and geeky soulmate Abed (Danny Pudi) riffed and rapped as a mind-bending comic duo. People love Troy and Abed. A colleague has a coffee mug with their faces on it.
So how are we here, sifting a crash scene, puzzling over an aborted show whose first half comprised Glover’s frat-boy entourage gyrating beside lushes from the crowd, hoisted onstage with the query ‘‘do you smoke weed’’?
Most unfathomable of all is that Glover, finally pricked by the yowls, seemed genuinely hurt. He got up and, for the first time, sang in his silky falsetto – but the room was lost, the booing set in. The show was at its best when it ended.
Topics booed with the rest and felt bad in the morning, but what had Glover thought would happen? Many in the audience – and this wasn’t his fault – had been burned by the Flo Rida fiasco. They’d been conned by Coolio, cheated by Chingy. It was hip-hop’s turn to show our city some love.
There was also the queasy feeling we were the butt of some smart-arse set-up, the Stanford Prison experiment, but with white middle-class indignation coursing through us in lieu of electricity. Who knows. Maybe he was trying to give us something unique.
The entourage didn’t help; paying punters don’t get to dictate the show they get, but they also know their mates aren’t welcome along to their workplace for a lark. Frankly, the next rapper Topics sees better be onstage, on time, solo. No one’s there to see your crew.
This shouldn’t be made into something it’s not. No one died. We’re simply left with a snapshot of a near-genius – yes, believe it – who, two years ago, had what the New York Times called ‘‘a modern meltdown, or something like it’’.
Glover, then, posted a series of notes handwritten on a hotel pad: “I feel like I’m letting everyone down. I’m afraid people hate who I really am. I’m afraid I hate who I really am.”
The Times noted, ‘‘Taken together, they painted a picture of a man wilting in the spotlight. Or a man telling a riveting story about same’’.
TOPICS’ thoughts are genuinely with anyone who works for Volkswagen right now, not to mention anyone who owns one.
Michael Lowing, of North Rothbury, takes aim.
‘‘Cessnock Greens councillor James Ryan is the proud owner of a diesel VW and he also owns a Skoda Yeti; another VW diesel,’’ says Michael.
‘‘I would hope that following the VW emissions scandal he has parked both cars up until they are both certified pollution free.’’
Cr Ryan?
Want some ice for that?
Email Tim on topics@theherald.com.au or tweet @TimConnell or phone 4979 5944
